Shon'ha'lock
by Lady Lupindawn
Summary: What if there had been another story, in and around the one you all thought you knew? The story of a girl, a boy, their opposite worlds and the ties that bound them. Spock/OC
1. Chapter 1: Nativity

2233: Nativity

Bombs rocked the shelter, and the whine of laser fire rent the air. Erika clutched her distended belly and fought for breath as she leaned against the wall. She again cursed the name of the rat who had left her, alone and very pregnant, at the first signs of invasion. _Couldn't be bothered to bloody well take me with him, could he?_ Erika seethed internally.

She glanced at the obstetrician lying on the floor. At least, what was left of her. She choked down a sob; Marisa had been a friend, one of the last. Forcing her eyes away from the corpse of her late friend, Erika gazed towards the door. There seemed to be a lull in the explosions above the semi-subterranean shelter, and Erika knew she would have one shot at best to get herself and her unborn daughter out of the burning city. Now was as good a time as any.

Erika started towards the door, her slightly blackened dress scraping against the wall. The explosion that had killed Marisa had only spared Erika because she had been ensconced in the scanning chamber at the time. However, the room had been filled with thick smoke when she was released from the chamber, and some of the ash had settled on the fabric of her clothes. Erika tried not to think of what the ash might have been not five minutes before. As she slipped out the door and began to climb the stairs, another bomb fell and the concussion threw her against the railing. She felt something warm and liquid spill down her legs. Terrified, she looked down at the stairs. A puddle of clear liquid was waterfalling down the steps. Erika nearly fainted in horror. Her water had just broken.

Her daughter was ready to be born.

Erika now had motivation to move faster. She couldn't well deliver a child in the midst of an active war zone, running for her life, could she? Ascending to the top of the stairs, she peered out into the street. It appeared deserted. Erika stole out across the pavement, her eyes on the grey sky. It was always grey and drizzly on the Terran colony of New London; perhaps that was why it had been so aptly named. But when Erika had arrived there with Damian it had seemed a paradise, someplace where they could build a life together away from the hectic lanes of the Federation. At least, until something happened that would have really tied him to this planet that Erika had come to describe in her thoughts as backwater: Erika had gotten pregnant. When the whispers of a Klingon invasion had begun to circulate, he had up and left, without so much as an explanation or even a good-bye. _Bastard_.

Thoughts of Damian slowed her pace and quickened her heart rate. This was the result of mingled heartbreak and a lingering infatuation with the man. Damian had sealed her fate, even after he was gone; the thoughts of him that had slowed her had left her wide open to the Klingon disruptor now pressing imposingly against the back of her neck. A deep, guttural laugh issued from behind her.

Erika got cold all over, despite the warm muzzle of the weapon against her skin. She began to shiver, realizing that the Klingon who held her at gunpoint didn't mean to kill her, or he would have done so already. She almost wished he had killed her, for if he wanted her alive, her fate was likely one worse than death.

"Please" she breathed, not sure if he would understand the word, and if he did, if he would pay any attention to it.

"You should be groveling at my feet, _p'tagh_," he growled in Federation Standard. "I spared your life."

Fear left Erika silent. The Klingon prodded her down the street, towards the main plaza. Once in the ruined square, he pulled out a communicator, and Erika chanced a look around.

Just days before, the square had been a happy, bustling commercial centre for the city, filled with stands of all varieties and people of all shapes and sizes. As a border planet on the edge of the Klingon Neutral Zone, New London provided a haven for all sorts of travelers, some savoury, some not. There had always been someone to talk to with an interesting story, no matter what the time of day or year. Now the thriving green trees were reduced to smoking stumps of charcoal, the fountain a heap of rubble and the stands unrecognizable lumps of twisted metal, wood and plastic. A sob stuck in her throat. So this was what war was like.

The Klingon was barking something into his communicator, his angry language nonsensical to Erika. He grabbed her arm and stood up straighter. The warm red light of a transporter beam enveloped them, and Erica whimpered in fear. To be a prisoner of the Klingon Empire really was worse than death.

The ship faded into view. Dark and utilitarian, the transporter room was far from inviting. Erika found herself dragged from the pad and out the door, as the Klingon barked into his communicator again. Moments later, she felt the ship accelerate to warp speed. Terror gripped her insides, and the child within her kicked restlessly, as though she too rebelled against their situation. Erika's fear extended to her daughter. What kind of existence was Erika bringing her into?

"Please," she begged at the Klingon, who didn't even spare her a glance. "I need a doctor, my baby… it's coming."

The Klingon's jaw tightened and he growled. Changing direction, he pulled her down a hallway and into a room that Erika assumed was the sickbay. It was dimly lit, and wicked-looking instruments lay on the tables. A female Klingon walked towards them, took one look at Erika's belly, and promptly shooed the man towards the door. They had a brief shouting match, which Erika assumed was the man attempting to stay and the doctor insisting that he leave. The woman won, and Erika was left alone with her, swaying where she stood.

"So, little _qa'hom_, your little brat wants out?" the woman said in thickly accented but perfectly understandable Federation Standard. Erika only nodded. "Well, let us begin the honourable battle that is birth!" the woman bellowed. "I am Akhil. What do they call you?"

"Erika," she answered, her thoughts elsewhere. "Why did they take me?" she asked, hoping that this doctor might be at least sympathetic enough to her plight to answer her questions.

She was. "They originally thought you would make an excellent gift for the captain once your child was taken care of," Akhil said as she directed Erika towards a bed and set about fetching her instruments. "But I talked him out of it. After all, who wants to have sex with a human?" She sounded faintly revolted. "So now they will simply make use of you in other ways. Perhaps as a labourer. I told them they were getting two workers for the price of one," she said, eyeing Erika's swollen belly. "They liked that."

Erika nodded, satisfied for the moment. However, she had other concerns about the doctor. "Do you… know anything about human physiology?" Erika asked cautiously.

Akhil paused. "There is no honour in learning about humans," she replied. "But I have delivered one human baby before, a prisoner's child, and it survived." Surprisingly, she walked over to Erika and helped her up onto a bed. There was the light of an impending battle in her eyes. "We will bring your tiny warrior into the universe. I promise you that."

Erika was strangely comforted by this.

The next few hours passed in a haze of pain, contractions and yelling for Erika. Akil's idea of pain relief was to scream at the top of her lungs, and did Erika ever scream. After a while her throat became raw, and Akhil brought her foul-tasting alcohol to "soothe" it. It burned going down but left her throat numb.

Finally she felt the ship decelerate into normal space through the fog of agony that cocooned her. The doors to the sickbay hissed open and two men entered. One was the man who had originally taken Erika from her home, the other an even taller man with long, thick hair and full battle armour. Erika guessed that this was the captain.

The tall man shouted at Akhil, gesturing wildly. Akhil bellowed back. Erika wondered idly if anyone actually spoke at a normal volume among this race, or if they all just screamed at each other. After a few minutes Erika discovered, to her surprise, that she could actually understand their words. They were speaking Basic.

"She's going _now_, whether her brat is out or not," the captain was saying. "She is a prisoner of the Klingon Empire, not a pet, Akhil, and she will go to Rura Penthe to work towards the glory of the Empire!"

"Then she will die: a lone human woman in labour would be devoured by those ingrates in seconds." Akhil countered the captain with a fierceness of will that seemed to even shock him. His eyes narrowed in rage at being defied.

"Then you go with her, traitorous dog!" he yelled, gesturing to the other man, who grasped her upper arm in what looked like a painful grip. The captain came towards Erika, who hastened to cover herself, but the captain didn't seem interested in anything but getting her to this "Rura Penthe" place. Erika knew she had heard the name before, and it struck fear into her heart, its meaning lurking just out of sight in the dark corners of her mind.

The captain grasped her in muscular arms and lifted her from the bed, walking towards the door. Erika moaned in agony as another, stronger contraction gripped her guts. She struggled against the captain's arms for a few moments before realizing the futility of her actions. He carried her behind his guard, who was dragging a spitting (literally spitting on everything in range) mad Akhil down the hall and into the transporter room. Erika's heart was pounding as the captain stood on the pad beside where the guard had tossed Akhil and she felt like it would leap out of her chest as the light surrounded her once again.

They materialized on a glacier. The cold cut through Erika's thin dress in moments, turning the sweat that soaked the fabric into ice water against her skin. She could almost feel the blonde strands of hair that plastered her face turning to icicles. The vista before her was a barren wasteland of ice and snow, the wind stirring eddies of snowflakes up into the frigid air. That was what jogged her memory. She wished she hadn't remembered.

Rura Penthe was the ice-bound Klingon prison planet. The one that no-one had ever escaped from, and where the Empire sent its most dangerous criminals to die.

Erika fainted. There was nothing else for her to do; it was freezing, she knew she would die soon anyway, and the pain had become overwhelming. By the time she fought back to consciousness, she was in a cave dripping with icicles. Sitting up slightly, the pain returned, full force, and Erika screamed. Akhil, who had been sitting beside the bed, leapt to her feet and into action immediately. She did not mention how Erika was the cause of her exile from her ship to the prison planet, for she knew that it was not the younger woman's fault. Akhil simply did what few Klingons had the will to do anymore: heal.

Another several hours later, with the help of a Klingon doctor, in a cave on a Klingon prison planet, Erika delivered her baby girl. The child had a shock of unbelievably red hair, a testament to her redheaded father. The little girl screamed as she was delivered, which Akhil later told Erika was a sign that she would be a great warrior one day. Erika hoped privately that this proved untrue. It was the furthest from what she had imagined for her child, and as Akhil placed the tiny, squalling, swaddled body in Erika's arms, she promised herself that somehow, she would get herself and her little girl away from this place.

"What do you name her, Aer'ika?" asked Akhil with surprising gentleness, and Erika found herself feeling glad that the Klingon woman was there with her.

"Ella," she said after long moment. "Meaning foreign. Short for Eleanor…"

She paused, looking into her daughter's bright blue eyes. "Meaning light."

* * * *

Thousands of light years way, in an environment that was Rura Penthe's polar opposite, a toddler sat in his room with his mother, playing and chatting idly about the eating habits of his pet sehlat, I-Chaya. The hot sun shone in through the window, and the heat of the desert summer would have fried anyone unused to it. But the little boy and his mother were accustomed to the heat.

Suddenly the little boy became very silent and still. His mother looked up in alarm; since he had learned to speak, her son had been nearly impossible to shut up. The boy sat stock-still, his elfin face scrunched slightly in curiosity, head tilted to one side, gazing out the window at the sky.

"Spock," Amanda Grayson said, worry seeping into her words. "What's wrong?"

"Mama," he said, finally looking at her, his face bright with excitement and as much joy as she had ever seen a Vulcan express. Amanda constantly marvelled at the speed at which her son had learned to speak; he could speak more eloquently than _she_ could sometimes, and he was only a year old. "There's a new star in the sky!"

Amanda rose and went to the window, looking out at the afternoon sky. There wasn't a star in sight. "Where, darling?"

"Do not worry, Mother," her son responded, his face fairly glowing as he gazed at the sky. "I am the only one who can see it."

He ambled out of the room on stubby legs to go tell his father, leaving Amanda more puzzled than she had ever felt before in her life.


	2. Chapter 2: Fire

A/N: So I just realized I could post an authors note. Shows what a noob I am... Anyway, the reason for the rating is for language for the first while, and some bow-chikka-wow-wow later on. I'm concentrating more on story than on sexy times, though, so if all you're looking for is smut, you may have to either wait or find another fic. The sex will only be where it fits with the story, sorry guys. Please R&R, this is my first story and I'd really love to see what people think of it! I am amazed, I just posted the first chapter last night and already 2 reviews, thank you so much to the two people who reviewed, it really validated me continuing to post! I'm starting to integrate some more canonical characters for your reading pleasure, so enjoy!

Part One: Fire and Ice

2239: Fire

The hard stone floors of the Academy hallways were not strangers to Spock. He frequently found himself sprawled upon them, feet swept out from under him or shoved from behind by an unknown assailant. Well, not entirely unknown. There was usually a list of likely suspects. However, his acquaintance with the floor didn't ever seem to make hitting it any less painful.

This time, a conveniently spilled bottle of water had caused him to lose his balance, slip and fall hard on his tailbone. Usually, he reserved the grimace of pain for later, as he walked towards home, unseen. But this time, he couldn't help himself from uttering a small yelp of pain and wincing as the shock shot up his spine. He heard a small crunch upon impact and groaned internally: another trip to the healer.

"Oh, I am deeply sorry, Spock! Did you just slip on my spill?" came a voice brimming with barely concealed contempt. Looking up at the origin of the voice, Spock's eyes met those of his classmate, T'Ven. She was sitting with a group of Spock's usual tormentors, who were gazing at him with unfriendly eyes. The corners of their lips were pulled up infinitesimally by humourless smiles, but their combined scorn didn't intimidate Spock anymore.

"His human blood must make him clumsy," piped up one boy, Vorret. "It is practically a statistical impossibility that he passed his _kahs-wan_ test at all."

"Have you set a date to re-take your test, Vorret?" asked Spock politely, picking himself up, brushing some of the water off his trousers and addressing the boy. "The statistics are in favour of your passing on your second attempt."

The faint amusement on their faces dropped off like leaves from a dying tree. Spock inclined his head and started away, anticipating no further provocations from the hopefully silenced group. At least until tomorrow.

However, Vorret held onto his pride more than Spock had foreseen. The larger Vulcan leapt to his feet and grabbed Spock's shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him into a wall. Spock had always been rather small compared to the other boys, but no-one was able to tell if this was because of his mixed heritage, a growth spurt yet to come, or a mix of both. The other boy was much bulkier than Spock, whose whippet-thin frame, although deceptively strong, was no match for Vorret's early growth spurt. Spock, knowing he could not emerge victorious in a physical fight, simply gazed at him without reacting. He didn't want to give the older boy the satisfaction of knowing how much his tailbone hurt at that moment. He feared that something may be broken and dreaded having to explain his ailment to the healer.

"As I recall, you failed to even finish the course, half-breed," snarled the boy, his emotional control wiped away by his injured pride. The older boy was now so close that Spock was forced to turn his head to avoid being hit in the nose by the other boy's chin. His eyes drifted down the corridor, seeking an escape. He spotted a figure emerging from one of the classrooms a small distance away. Spock recognized her high ponytail and aristocratic features.

T'Pring's eyes widened fractionally, before she turned the opposite way and hurried down the hall. She was pretending not to see, but Spock knew she had. Perhaps she was ashamed further by her intended mate; not only was he half human, he was also the school punching bag.

"Did you hear me, mongrel?" Vorret demanded, shaking Spock. "Who are you to condemn me when you failed to even cross the finish line?"

"The judges are of a different opinion than you, Vorret, and it is their judgment that counts," Spock said quietly, too softly for the other children to hear. "I understand the disappointment of not passing, however…"

"You do not understand! How could you understand?" hissed Vorret, rage in his eyes. "The judges felt sorry for you. That is the only possible explanation for you passing. The compassion you exhibited should have caused you to fail."

"You could not have known that passing by the injured boy and I would lead to failure," Spock reasoned calmly. "In fact, quite the contrary; we were taught that the results would be based on individual achievement, and that teamwork was frowned upon. I had resigned myself to failure. If I had not aided that boy, he would have surely died. I could not abide having that on my conscience."

"Your _conscience_…" Vorret uttered the word like a curse. "Your humanity should have cost you the test. It is not logical. It is not fair…"

"Life is unfair, Vorret," Spock said, more than a little smugly, firmly pushing him away and tugging his tunic down, seemingly unruffled. "Become accustomed to that, and things will go more smoothly for you."

Spock began to walk away, then had a thought. He turned back to Vorret, who looked slightly stunned.

"As members of my mothers race would say," Spock said, locking eyes with the older boy, "Good luck with your test."

Without waiting for a response, Spock strode away. He did his best not to limp, as his injured tailbone was now throbbing most painfully. Spock had to bite his lip to keep it from quivering. He was ashamed of himself. He had exhibited far too much emotion in that encounter; he would have to do much better next time. It would not do for him to show his feelings as he had. The other children already had enough reasons to poke fun at him.

Spock's last three classes of the day, Biochemistry, Early Vulcan History and Elementary Quantum Mechanics, were both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because they were not physically demanding, requiring only mental acuity, a curse because he had to sit for four and a half hours with his weight on his tailbone. Somehow, he found the resolve to compartmentalize the pain and participate in the classes, but there were times, particularly in Biochem, while sitting on a lab stool, when Spock would have gladly amputated everything from the waist down to stop the pain.

Finally, class let out. Spock gathered his things and rushed for the door. In his haste, he failed to watch where he was going, and ran headlong into a moderately solid object. Landing hard on his tailbone for a second time that day, Spock stifled a moan at the flash of agony that again blasted up his spine. Looking up, his dark eyes met another pair of brown eyes, these ones having seen much more than Spock's own. Wise and knowing, they gazed at Spock, awaiting the flood of apologies that were sure to come.

T'pau scrutinized Spock as he slowly, painfully stood up to face her.

"Are you injured, son of Sarek?" she inquired.

"It is repairable," answered Spock, skirting around actually answering her question. "Please excuse me. I did not see you."

"Obviously," replied T'pau, but she did not seem offended. "It is alright. I am uninjured."

"I am… gratified to hear that," replied Spock. "Now, if you will excuse me…"

T'pau nodded once and Spock hurried past her, towards the Academy's vast hospital facility. One of the doctors was a close colleague of his father, and usually patched Spock up after encounters with the other children that Spock did not want his parents to find out about. _It isn't lying,_ Spock told himself, _it is simply preventing them from learning of a truth that will cause them pain._

Sayul's office was, as per usual, spotless and gleaming. His instruments lay on the tables, aligned perfectly, and the coverlet on the examination table was as taut as a cadet's bed sheet. Sayul, however, was nowhere to be seen when Spock entered the office, now limping openly. Setting his school bag down, he waited in silence.

When the door finally opened, it was not only Sayul who came through it. He was accompanied by a very tall man whose hair was just beginning to be touched by silver. Spock stared at him in horror. It was his father, Sarek.

Spock swallowed audibly, which alerted his father to his presence.

"Spock, what are you doing here?" he inquired, a slight frown creasing his brow. "Your classes finished fifteen minutes, thirty-two seconds ago. Shouldn't you be on your way home?"

Spock had no idea what to say. How could he explain what had happened to his father? The shame would be unbearable.

"I… slipped on some water and fell onto my tailbone," Spock said at length. Although technically this was the truth Spock felt remorse at keeping the whole truth from his father. "I did not wish to trouble you with this."

"The health of my son is no trouble, Spock," replied Sarek, and for some reason Spock got the feeling that he was being chastised. "Carry on, Sayul. I shall see you when you return home, Spock."

Spock nodded and watched his father exit the office. Sayul motioned for Spock to sit on the table.

"With all due respect, sir, I would rather stand," Spock said, the prospect of sitting again making him want to grit his teeth. "Sitting causes the pain to worsen."

Sayul nodded, understanding, and got a medical tricorder from a cabinet. As he examined Spock, his brow furrowed.

"When did your… accident occur, Spock?" Sayul asked. Sayul was aware of why Spock kept getting injured, although Spock had never told him. The healer was a perceptive man.

"During the midday break," Spock answered. "As I said, I slipped on some spilled water."

"Spock, that was nearly five hours ago," the healer said disapprovingly. "Why did you not come then?"

"I had classes to attend," Spock responded icily.

Sayul just shook his head and set about repairing the broken tailbone.

When Spock strode out of the medical facility half an hour later, his tailbone repaired, the campus of the Academy was far emptier than during school hours. Only the Academy's staff, some full time students and visitors to the planet were in evidence. Spock felt a small surge of relief. He would not have to face his fellow students again.

As Spock hurried towards his home, he kept his eyes down. But he wasn't really seeing the ground, or anything else for that matter. All he wanted was to get home and curl up on his bed and hide from the world for a little while. It was a long way from the Academy's campus to his house, and he usually took a groundcar home from school. However, he opted not to take it that day. He partly wanted some time alone, and a deeper, more subconscious part of him wanted a bit of time to feel sorry for himself. When he finally reached the garden gate, the sun had all but set. He hurried through the gate and into his home.

The house still felt slightly empty without I-Chaya, especially when Spock first arrived home every day. However, there was someone waiting for him at the door this time. His mother.

"Your father called," she said by way of greeting, her hands firmly on her hips, a cloth slung over her shoulder. It looked as though she had been cooking. Sure enough, the aroma of her favourite dish, vegetarian curry, was wafting from the kitchen. Although it had taken Spock and his father some time to appreciate the pungent, spicy fare, they were both nearly as fond of it as she was now.

"He said he'd run into you at Dr. Sayul's office," she continued as Spock went into the kitchen. She followed him. "What happened?"

"I was clumsy," Spock replied testily. He had no desire to discuss the incident. "I fell and injured my tailbone. It was easily repaired."

"You fell, huh?" Amanda countered, disbelief clear in her voice. "Was this fall entirely your fault, or were there others involved?"

She was asking if someone had pushed him. While not precisely the truth, Spock knew how close she was to being right.

"I slipped on a puddle of water," Spock said. "Now if you don't mind, I have work to do for my Quantum Mechanics class tomorrow. When will dinner be served?"

"In about an hour," Amanda said, deflated. As Spock turned to leave, she added, "If someone did do this to you, you know you could tell me, right, Spock?"

"Of course, Mother," he replied over his shoulder. For a moment, he considered telling her everything; the names they called him, the names they called _her_, the shoving and hitting and prodding. For a few precious seconds, he thought about running into her arms and sobbing, as he would under these circumstances had he been a fully human boy. But he was not. And he could not do what a human boy would, as much as he wished he could.

Spock retreated to his room. Setting his bag down beside his desk, he collapsed heavily on his bed. His still tender tailbone protested this cavalier treatment, but Spock ignored the slight discomfort. Looking out the window, the stars that were just starting to show twinkled at him. He sighed. What he wouldn't give to be far away at that moment…


	3. Chapter 3: Ice

2241: Ice

The ground rushed up to meet Ella much more quickly than she had anticipated. Partially catching herself in a tuck, she rolled and sprang to her feet, circling around to face her opponent again.

She didn't know the name of the alien's race or even what gender it was. The creature was fairly short, no taller than Ella, but stocky, with thick forearms and wide shoulders. Its skin was thick and ridged, rising into a cartilaginous crest at the top of its head. It was covered in mottled green and grey splotches. Privately Ella likened its coloring to that of a particularly pungent piece of rotten plant matter. There was plenty of that in the deeper mines: strange, inedible lichens and fungi that grew without light or heat and were left there to ferment.

Ella recalled finding a variety that was phosphorescent a few months earlier, whose light allowed a whole ecosystem to develop around it. Fascinated, she had taken a sample to show her mother and Akhil. Erika had been unsurprisingly unimpressed, and had insisted that it be disposed of immediately. Without her knowledge, Akhil and Ella had hidden it away in a shipping container and were observing its growth. Eventually Erika would find out about it, but only when she started to smell it.

A wordless roar from the alien alerted Ella to its impending charge. Readying herself, she waited until the last possible second, darted out of the way and jabbed what she hoped was the right nerve junction to render the thing unconscious.

She hoped wrong, and it only made the alien madder. The crowd that had gathered around them was going wild, hooting and hissing and jabbering in all their respective languages and dialects. Everyone loved a good fight. One voice, a strong, deep male voice, rose above the rest, speaking Romulan.

"Hit the sides of her crest!"

Ella wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so before the alien could fully recover from its failed assault, Ella pounced, chopping her hands into both sides of the alien's hard crest. Instantly, its eyes became unfocused and it collapsed. Wiping her hands on her already filthy trousers (the alien's crest was unpredictably slimy), Ella walked away from her downed opponent without a second glance. The newcomer would now think twice before breaking either of the two unspoken, cardinal rules in the mines:

Sleep with one eye open.

Don't mess with Ella.

Although it was rare for any of the criminals who were sent to Rura Penthe to survive longer than a few months in the unforgiving environment of the mines, the ones who did had quickly adopted Ella as a sort of unofficial mascot. Even since she had learned to walk, she had been coddled by murderers, traitors to the Empire, thieves and smugglers. Many of the inmates had family on the outside, and to them, Ella was a sort of surrogate. She was treated with the utmost respect and care, but now that she was old enough to fend for herself, they mostly let her fight her own battles (at least, to a point), believing that to be the best way for her to learn self-sufficiency.

As she walked through the crowd, bombarded by slaps on the back and congratulations in all the languages she spoke and many more that she didn't, she was accosted by two Romulans. Barely sparing them a glance, she kept walking. She was late for curfew, and feared her mother's wrath more than that of any of the other inmates. Erika was a passionate woman, quick to laugh, quick to cry and quick to anger. Her mercurial moods kept Ella on edge at almost all times. Although Ella knew her mother loved her and wanted what was best, her constantly shifting demeanour often frightened Ella.

"Was that you giving me pointers back there, Cap'?" asked Ella in Romulan. She spoke over her shoulder as she walked away from the crowd. The two Romulans were following her.

"It was. Glad I could help," intoned the taller of the two, his deep, raspy voice devoid of inflection as usual. His head was shaved bald, and spiny black tattoos snaked across his scalp and down onto his temples. They had always fascinated Ella, but the other Romulans on Rura Penthe had explicitly told her not to ask.

Captain Nero was a volatile man, not to be trifled with.

"How did you know where to hit him?" Ella asked as the two men came up to walk beside her. Her long strides were still nowhere near the length of theirs, but they slowed their pace in order to accommodate her.

"The captain has encountered her species, the Resylans, before," the other Romulan, Ayel, offered up. "We worked a mining operation on one of their colonies."

"So it was a female," Ella said, nodding. "Sounds about right. The bitch fought like a girl."

"Kiss your mother with that mouth?" came a voice from an intersecting passageway, and Ella turned to see Xandr, a female member of Nero's crew, walking towards them. She had clearly just returned from her spell in the shafts, and her delicate, sprite-like face was caked with grime. Ella had done her hours earlier that day, but her shift was generally less arduous than the rest of the inmates because of her age. Ella had been in the process of wiping the grit from her face, but had been interrupted by the Resylan's attack. "That's not language one typically hears from an eight-year-old's lips."

"Are you implying that my upbringing was anything close to typical? If you are, I suggest you pay a visit to Akhil. You may have been exposed to some sort of toxic gas during your shift, which is causing you to hallucinate" said Ella, giving Xandr a wry look. She had the demeanour and mannerisms of someone far older than her own eight years. This was a result of having spent those eight years in one of the most unforgiving environments imaginable: a maximum security prison planet.

They reached the door to the quarters that Ella shared with her mother and Akhil. Because Akhil was essentially the only doctor on the planet, special arrangements were made for her. That, plus the guards also had a bit of a soft spot for Ella. She seemed able to charm her way into anyone's good graces. Especially unsavoury types like the guards and the inmates.

"And now unto the gates of Hell…" muttered Ella, waving goodbye to the trio of Romulans and stepping into her quarters.

The outburst wasn't as bad as she had anticipated. At first.

"Where have you been, Ella?" her mother demanded. "Your shift ended almost half an hour ago! Haven't we talked about coming straight home after your shifts to let me know you're safe?"

Then Erika spied Ella's split lip, and all hell broke loose.

"YOU'VE BEEN FIGHTING AGAIN!" Erika's words were a statement of fact, not a question. "How many times have we been through this? You are eight years old; I won't have you fighting like a common vagabond!"

"Just let it go, Mom," Ella sighed, exasperated. She recognized the validity of her mother's argument, but knew it didn't apply to her. Fighting was her way of showing newcomers that she was a force to be reckoned with. "I know what I'm doing."

Erika clenched her jaw. Her daughter infuriated her. Just because she was schooled in Romulan martial arts (thanks to Nero and his crew), Karate (Erika almost regretted teaching her that) and Klingon bar-fighting (credit Akhil) did not make her invincible. She was still a child, for God's sake! But despite her protestations, she knew that a child was bound to grow up much faster in a place like Rura Penthe, with a planet full of criminals as babysitters.

"Go find Akhil," she growled, her anger diminishing. "Then we'll go get some dinner."

Ella raced from the room, glad of the respite. Striking out into the tunnels again, she sought Akhil in her usual haunts: the makeshift tavern, where illicit alcohol, brewed by inmates out of God knows what was served, the boxing ring and finally the mess cavern. She finally ran into her as she was heading back to the room. As they started towards their quarters to fetch Erika, Ella told Akhil all about her fight. The Klingon was mightily impressed, bellowing a Klingon war-cry upon hearing the story.

"I always told your mother that you would be a great warrior when you were grown!" Akhil said proudly. She and Erika had become close friends in their attempts to raise Ella right. Akhil had seen no choice but to have part of Ella's upbringing conducted in the Klingon manner. It was the only way the little human girl would survive to adulthood on Rura Penthe. Although Erika had planned to get herself and her daughter off Rura Penthe well before her child reached adulthood, she had seen the sense in Akhil's words. So far, it was working; their little oddball family had done well for itself.

Dinner was a dismal affair, as usual. The menu consisted of gray mush, red mush, and green mush that evening, standard fare for a workday. Every day was a workday. Nevertheless, the inmates dove into the food with gusto. It was one of only two meals they got per day to replenish the energy they expended toiling in the mines, and they endeavoured to make the most of it.

Ella had never, ever been a fussy eater, for which Erika was eternally grateful. Then again, one could not afford to be a picky eater where they lived. It was either take what you're given, or starve. Yet, despite her voracious appetite for practically anything edible, Ella was still twig-thin. Five hours a day doing heavy labour in a frigid mine shaft will do that to a girl.

After wolfing down her portion, Ella spied Xandr, Ayel and Captain Nero on the other side of the cavern, their empty bowls strewn out in front them on the table. Catching her eye, Xandr motioned for Ella to come over and join them. Glancing at her mother and receiving the approving nod, Ella stood and started to move towards the other side of the room.

"Be back by 22:00 hours," Erika called as her daughter skipped away. Ella gave her a thumbs-up as she left. Stifling a sigh, Erika let her go. She worried sometimes that allowing her daughter to fraternize so readily with criminals might be detrimental to her, but acknowledged that Nero and his posse weren't the worst of them, despite the fact that they were Romulans. Racial distinctions became less important than the actual threat factor of an inmate on Rura Penthe.

"We found something that we think you'll like," said Xandr by way of greeting when Ella reached them. "Want to see?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"You'll see; it's beautiful," said Xandr as she and the two other Romulans beside her rose and headed into one of the tunnels that led away from the mess hall. Following them Ella found herself led towards an area of the complex that she had never visited before. It was close to the tunnel that led to the surface, running nearly parallel to it. As they picked their way over the loose rubble on the floor of the tunnel (it was a seldom used passage), the walls of the tunnel slowly became closer together, and the ceiling became steadily lower. Just when it became difficult to walk upright, at least for the adults, the Romulans veered off into a small alcove which slanted upwards into the tunnel wall. They motioned for Ella to precede them into the alcove. She did so, and, looking up, was filled with amazement at the beauty she saw.

The stars flickered serenely on their indigo canvas. Ella stared at them through the small opening in the stone ceiling in wonder. One didn't get many opportunities to gaze at the sky while imprisoned in dilithium mines: in fact, Ella had never before seen the sky. Her eyes widened in awe as she stared at what was, to her, the entire galaxy. Her mother had described the night sky to her, even shown her star-charts. Ella had studied these charts until her eyes were crossed, but as a result she could now pick out the individual star systems her mother had taught her about. One in particular jumped out at her.

"There's Sol!" she exclaimed, a gigantic smile splitting her face. "That's where I come from!" she said, turning to the Romulans. She couldn't keep her eyes away from the sky for long though, and quickly turned around. A cold wind whipped in from the arctic exterior, making Ella's face smart, but she ignored it. "There's Rigel, and Orion, and there's Andoria's sun – I can't remember what that one's called…" She puzzled for a moment before giving up and returning to her star-gazing. "There's Romulus' sun, I think," she said, pointing to another star. She looked back for confirmation. But her three companions were all suddenly grave, their faces downcast and crestfallen. "What's wrong?" Ella asked, alarmed.

"Nothing" growled Nero, turning away. Ella was confused, as she often was by the enigmatic captain, but chose to let it slide. She again turned to look at the stars. It was becoming more and more difficult for her to tear her eyes away from them. One star, just to the right of Sol, caught her attention.

"I know that star," she said, half to herself. "That's 40 Eridani A. That's Vulcan's star!" This made her smile even more. She had always had a thing for tales of Vulcan. Perhaps it was the sheer opposition between Rura Penthe's glacial climes and the desert planet described to her by her mother, perhaps it was something else altogether, but Vulcan had always held a special place in her heart. Seeing the star it orbited twinkling at her merrily made a piece of her heart glow with pleasure.

"Vulcan?!" came an exclamation from behind her, and she turned sharply. Nero was staring at her with a look in his eyes that approached madness. His angled brows were furrowed in an enraged frown, and his hands were balled into white-knuckled fists at his sides. Ayel and Xandr were looking at him warily, but, looking closer, Ella saw that same hateful fire in their eyes as well.

"What?" Ella said. "What did I say?"

Xandr pulled Ella down and away from the two men. "Don't mention Vulcan again if you know what's good for you," the older woman said. "It just winds them up."

"Why?"

"I'll explain some other time," Xandr said hurriedly. "But don't ask the captain or Ayel, whatever you do. Understand?"

"Of course," Ella replied hastily. Then she felt another hand on her arm. Ella spun, seeing Nero.

"Stay away from _Vulcans_," he hissed venomously, uttering the word like a blasphemy. "They are all traitors and murderers!"

Ella nodded mutely, plainly terrified. Nero seemed to soften a bit.

"It's for your own good," he amended, releasing her arm. "I wouldn't want to see you hurt by any of those _kllhes_." Without another word, he turned and started back down the corridor towards the main complex. His crewmates looked at Ella, but she waved them away.

"Give me a few more minutes."

After their footsteps had faded away, Ella clambered back up into the alcove and perched on an outcropping of rock. She gazed at the sky, still infatuated by the sheer immensity and far-awayness of it. Any ceiling she had ever known had been, at most, five or ten meters above her head. These points of light were billion and billions of kilometres away. They filled her heart with wonder.

Despite what Nero had said, Ella's eyes kept being drawn back to that one point of light, just right of her home star. The star system whose people were as cold as the wind blowing into Ella's face, despite their hot, arid climate. She stared at it for a long time before reluctantly retiring to her quarters. She knew it would definitely not be the last time she visited.


	4. Chapter 4: Capture

A/N: Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter, I sort of ran out of things to say sooner than I thought I would. Plus exams are looming, and I really should be studying. Thanks for all the great reviews, I'm really, really glad that people like my spin on things. BTW, I kind of love Nero, and was so glad when he decided to make a cameo in my story, Oh, I know he destroyed Vulcan and is evil and all, but I think he's a great character. He just sorta fit. Anyway, I'll let you read. Toodles!

2245: Capture

Spock's sensitive ears picked up her strangely heavy footfalls well before she chose to make her presence known. The heaviness of her step confused Spock; her slim frame implied a light step, not the solid clomp that echoed through the library. He stopped studying and braced himself for what he was sure would be either: A) An accusation, or B) A criticism. T'Pring was always critical of him in some fashion or another. Although it could simply be practice for when they were married, Spock wondered if it was her own personal way of demoralizing him. She couldn't be cruel to him outright, so she criticized him endlessly instead. Spock often thought that he would have preferred it if she actually hit him: it would be less annoying.

"Spock!" her voice rang out sharply as she rounded a shelf and caught sight of him. "Where have you been?"

"Here," said Spock, confused. "Was I supposed to be somewhere else?"

The late afternoon sunshine slanted in through the floor to ceiling windows, illuminating T'Pring as she stalked towards Spock. He saw that she wore a long robe, and her hair was plaited intricately. Realization dawned, and Spock swallowed audibly.

"The meal with your parents…" he said quietly. "It… slipped my mind. I apologize. Shall I join you now?"

"If your busy schedule can allow it," T'Pring replied, more than a little bitterly.

"I believe I can make some time to interact with the family of my intended," he said, gathering his things and placing them in his bag with utmost care. "I apologize for forgetting, but I was working on a mathematical problem and..."

"Save it, Spock," T'Pring snapped. She turned and walked away, leaving Spock to follow in her wake. For a scant moment Spock felt a curious sense of dread at the prospect of being married to this individual for the rest of his natural life. Her emotions were always bubbling very close to the surface, and she was unpredictable at best. Also, she didn't seem to like Spock at all, and he theorized that she may be resentful of being bonded with a half-breed.

"What am I saving 'it' for?" Spock queried as he rushed out of the library on her heels. She gave him a look that was faintly disgusted and kept walking, which Spock found incredibly rude. Then again, she was never all that polite to anyone, least of all him. The only people she seemed to respect were T'Pau and her own father. Spock knew that it was his duty to be civil with T'Pring, to be an amiable mate and see to her needs. But deep down, he cringed at the thought of doing so for the 200-odd year long life he had to look forward to.

She barely spared him a glance as they headed for her dwelling. It was about a fifteen minute walk from campus, and the whole way Spock was a few steps behind her. They spent the trip in silence. Spock felt as he imagined a slave in Pre-Enlightenment times might have felt, submissive, forced to walk several paces behind his master. She wasn't even his wife yet, and she already thought she controlled his life. Well, she did not, and he intended to make that clear. Or at least try.

Upon entering her domicile, they were formally greeted by her parents, Serat and T'Jen. Her mother, calm and serene as always, provided an excellent buffer for Serat's famous temper. Spock found that all too often Serat's anger was directed at him, Spock, and T'Jen had to intervene. Just because Spock was bonded to his daughter did not give Serat leave to criticise him and berate him for simply being who he was.

They sat down to eat. Silence settled over the table as they started into the food, most of which was cold from its long wait on the table. Spock politely consumed his bowl of _plomeek_ soup, and partook in a few of the steamed vegetables in a ceramic bowl in the center of the table. T'Jen brought up the subject of school, and Spock spoke for several minutes of his classes and what he intended to do after he graduated.

"The Academy is the only viable option for a young man as promising as yourself," stated Serat upon hearing Spock's main focus for his studies. This made Spock bristle a bit.

"I am cultivating multiple options. It would be illogical to concentrate on only one course of action, in the event that it does not occur as planned."

"What other courses are you considering?" asked T'Jen, seeming genuinely interested. Serat simply looked condescending, as he often did when he looked at Spock.

"I have considered applying for Starfleet Academy, and I have no doubt that I would be successful should I choose that path."

The other three people at the table stopped chewing, drinking and other miscellaneous activities to stare unabashedly at Spock. T'Pring blinked rapidly. Her mother had one eyebrow raised, but otherwise looked curious as opposed to shocked. Serat's jaw was clenched minutely and his eyes were wide.

"I believe I could excel there, and given my heritage, it is only logical to explore the idea of having Earth be a part of my life." Spock felt as though he was on the defensive. He hadn't said he _was_ going to Starfleet Academy, just that he was considering it as an option. He fully intended to attend the Vulcan Science Academy after he graduated. But in case that did not occur, he thought it would be practical to consider other courses for his career to take.

"But surely that is all it will come to, yes? An idea?" T'Pring looked murderous.

"Perhaps, and given I am very confident in my academic ability, I have no doubt that I will be accepted into the Science Academy."

"Of-…"

The communicator in Spock pocket chirped, interrupting T'Jen and making Spock jump slightly. He pulled it out and flipped it open.

"Spock, you had better be at T'Pring's right now. If you forgot, I am going to be very, very upset with you. I know you two don't get along, but she's your betrothed! You must…"

"Mother, I am eating my evening meal with them at this very moment," he responded into the device, interrupting her tirade before she went too far, unaware that T'Pring and her family could hear what she said. "I will contact you when we are finished."

"O-okay," Amanda responded, clearly realizing that they must have heard her. "Have a good time."

"Thank you, I shall endeavour to do so," Spock responded, flipping the communicator shut and stowing it in his pocket. The other people at the table were silent, gazing at him.

"The soup was lovely, T'Jen, you have outdone yourself," he commented, breaking the silence. "And the vegetables were done to perfection. It was delicious."

"Thank you, I am gratified that it was satisfactory," she replied. She stood, starting to clear the plates into the kitchen area.

"Allow me," he offered, standing and taking the dishes from her hands. He neatly stacked them on the counter beside the sink, and returned to the table to clear the bowls. If Vulcans could experience awkward silences, those few moments would be classified as such, he thought.

"I should return to my studies promptly," Spock said as he returned to his seat. "Thank you for having me to your home."

"Are you leaving so soon?" asked Serat, standing as Spock did.

"Yes, I have an exam tomorrow and I have not studied sufficiently for it. I must continue to review my notes if I wish to obtain my desired grade."

"Perhaps T'Pring could help you study," T'Jen suggested.

"I prefer to study alone," Spock said firmly, and it came out sounding harsher than he'd intended. T'Pring's face flickered with anger and she pushed her chair back and stood.

"If Spock is leaving, then I will retire to my room," she said quietly, dangerously. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, T'Pring," chorused her parents. Spock merely nodded, and she whirled, dashing down the hallway and out of sight.

As soon as she was out of earshot and eyesight of the other occupants of the house, T'Pring let out a small whimper. It was barely audible, even to her, but it ashamed her so much that she clapped a hand over her mouth, ducking into her room and locking the door behind her.

She wished, often and fervently, that she hadn't been bonded to Spock. It left her confused much of the time, and she was unsure if her mixed feelings towards him were genuine or a result of the bond. She had a feeling that if they were not bonded she would dislike him, and the only reason his inattentiveness bothered her was because of their bond, which was admittedly weak. She also disliked him because she was not the one she pined for. Although she knew it was frowned upon to cultivate emotional attachments to individuals outside one's family, lately T'Pring had found herself inexorably drawn to a boy in her Linguistics class, Stonn. He was a full-blooded Vulcan, and a fine physical and mental specimen. He was unbonded, and although she wished every day that she could be promised to him and not Spock, she knew she could not go against her family. So she repressed and hid her interest in Stonn, out of respect for her family and the traditions they observed.

Spock, however, was entirely unaware of her internal struggle. As he left the house, he took a deep breath at being released from what had proved to be a rather uncomfortable situation. But as he walked towards the tram station to catch a homeward train, it dawned on him that he had not escaped. In reality, he had only tightened the vice; by creating tension with T'Pring and her family, he had only made it more pressing for them to spend time with each other to rectify the conflict.

He knew that T'Pring and her family would never approve of him joining Starfleet, and as time passed Spock had been finding that Starfleet was becoming more and more appealing. The idea of doing something entirely unexpected, totally outside the norm, secretly thrilled him. But if he remained bonded to T'Pring, her family's opinions would carry enormous weight. He knew he would have no opportunity to escape to Starfleet with them looking over his shoulder. In essence, his life had been neatly laid in front of him without any of his input. For a split second, Spock felt an emotion: disheartenment. He really was trapped.


	5. Chapter 5: Release

A/N: So most of the preceding chapter and this one were pre-written, and now I've sort of run out of pre-written stuff. I will keep posting, obviously, but it may be a bit longer between posts. Sorry!

2246: Release 

"Ella, where the hell are you?"

Ella's ears pricked up at the sound of her mother's voice. Looking up from the stolen dataPADD in her hand, she unfolded her lanky frame from her alcove and hopped down to the floor of the passageway. Casting one last look at the emerging starscape, she spun and hurried down the hall towards her mother.

"I figured I'd find you here," was her mother's annoyed yet resigned greeting when Ella reached her. "You'll catch your death, being so close to the outside so much. I wish you'd spend less time here."

"It gives me room to breathe, Mum," Ella replied, tucking the PADD into the deep pocket of her baggy overalls. She tucked a curl of solid icicle-hair behind her ear, trying to hide how cold she actually was from her mother. Ella did her best to bundle up when she went to sit beside what she had begun to simply call her window, but the biting cold always gnawed its way through to her skin. When she went straight there after her shift, she often dripped with sweat, which then froze on her skin and in her hair. "Can we not do this right now?" she implored, heading out of the corridor towards the mess hall. It was nearly dinnertime. She didn't turn to see if her mother was following.

Erika had to move her comparatively stubby legs fast to catch up with Ella's swift gait. The arduous physical work had taken its toll on Erika, and her once proud shoulders were now slightly bowed. All her curves had melted away years ago, leaving only hard sinew and muscle. Her face was still lovely, but it was no longer cherubic and full; it was now the face of a falcon, blue eyes always flashing about sharply, always on the defensive.

As they neared the mess hall, there was a surprising lack of noise. Only a few voices could be heard shouting, as opposed to the usual din, and they approached the large doors cautiously. Peering in, they saw what the lack of commotion was about.

A well-dressed Klingon man, standing head and shoulders above the men around him, was roaring at Akhil in rapid-fire Klingon (neither Erika nor Ella was surprised about that).

"I asked you a simple question, _p'tagh,_" he bellowed, spit flying from his lips. "Where can I find the human females?"

She spat in his still-gaping mouth.

"I mean them no harm!" he sputtered indignantly. "Although it galls me, I'm here to… help them."

"Really?" said Akhil sceptically. "Well, you can take your help and shove it-"

"Akhil!" Ella cried before her mother could stop her, dashing across the hall to stand next to her friend. "What do you want?" She addressed the newcomer brusquely, eyeing his well-tailored clothing and relative cleanliness. His hair even looked like it had been washed in the past month.

"There's someone to see you," the Klingon said. It looked like he was unhappy about whoever it was that wanted to meet with Ella and her mother.

"Who?" asked Erika, who had caught up with her daughter.

The Klingon didn't reply, and turned abruptly towards the exit. Ella and her mother hastened to follow him, jogging to keep up with his long, angry strides. He led them out of the mess hall and along the winding path to the passage to the surface. Erika and Ella shared a swift, worried glance. The temperature dropped as they climbed the final passageway to the doors to the surface. They rounded a bend…

…And found themselves face to face with a group of humans. Ella was dumbstruck. How smart they all looked in their matching uniforms, all the women with their hair scraped back and the men with their clean-shaven cheeks! Ella had never seen a human male before, and was astounded at how different they were from the myriad men on Rura Penthe. The lead man, clad in a yellow shirt, was smiling at them, his handsome face radiating welcome. Ella couldn't help it; she cracked a smile back.

"I'm Commander Christopher Pike, first officer aboard the U.S.S. _Yorktown_," said the man by way of greeting, extending a hand to Erika, then Ella. "We've come to bring you home."

"And it's about bloody time!" Erika exclaimed. "I'd begun to think the Federation had forgotten about us entirely!"

"They didn't," Pike assured her. "It takes a fair amount of convincing to get Klingon bureaucrats to relinquish hard-won prisoners of war. Thirteen years worth of convincing, as it turns out. But they finally relented and let the _Yorktown_ come and get you. So here we are."

Ella was left breathless. Leave Rura Penthe? The thought had crossed her mind, usually when she thought of Earth and her mother's stories of forests, lakes and sunlight. But all Ella had ever known was ice and rock and work. She knew she would be better off among her won kind, but strangely, the thought of leaving frightened her. Rura Penthe had become home; it was where she had been born and raised.

Looking at her mother, Ella saw understanding in her eyes. Erika knew that Ella was having mixed feelings about leaving. But she also knew that this was their only chance to get out, and she was going to take it.

"We have some things to collect before we leave," Erika said to Pike. "Can we have a few minutes?"

"We've been granted six hours of orbit," Pike told her. "Just as long as you're back before then, do what you like."

"It won't take anywhere near that much time," Erika replied, and she and Ella turned to go. "We'll be back within an hour or so."

They went straight to their quarters. Neither of them spoke; there wasn't much they could say. Upon reaching their rooms, Ella wrenched open the sticky, obstinate door and they went in for the last time.

"Where HAVE you been?" Akhil roared as soon as they stepped inside. The massive Klingon woman was standing in the center of the room, muscle-bound legs spread firmly in a wide stance, hands on her hips. Her handsome face was bunched in anger, and her long, coarse hair curled about her face wildly. "I saw you leave with that _p'tagh_ politician and I thought you were being led off to execution! I came here to get whatever weapon I could find, and I was about to go after you!"

"Akhil," Ella said soothingly. "We're going home."

The Klingon's anger turned to shock in a heartbeat, and her tense stance sagged. She looked at Ella in disbelief.

"When?" was all she could say.

Erika jumped into the conversation. "Now," she replied softly. "They're waiting for us. To take us to Earth."

Akhil was dumbfounded. Ella, unable to bear the look on her face, ran over to her and did something that she rarely attempted: she embraced Akhil, and rarer still, Akhil hugged her back.

They set about packing up their few belongings. It did not take long, and they filled only one bag with their things. They made one last pass, looking for anything they had missed, and Akhil began rummaging through her things, searching for something.

"What are you looking for?" Ella asked, walking over to her. Akhil straightened up, holding a bundle of tattered cloth in her hands. She began to unwrap the bundle's contents, slowly revealing a gleaming _bat'leth _with soft leather handles and wicked sharp, curving blades.

"How'd you get that past security?" Ella asked, eyes fixed on the weapon.

"I had someone smuggle it in for me," she replied nonchalantly. She paused, her hands tightening on the handles of the weapon. "I want you to have it," she said at length. "It was my mother's, and her mother before her, all the way back to the time of Kahless. One of my ancestors fought in his army, and since then this blade has been passed down, mother to daughter, all the way to me. To you. I have no children of my own, and that is not likely to change." She paused again, taking a deep breath. "I would be proud to call you daughter."

Ella knew it would be pointless to argue with Akhil; once she made up her mind, nothing and no-one ever managed to change it for her. Gently picking up the blade, Ella was swamped with emotions. She was going to miss Akhil's steady presence in her life.

The weapon was heavy, but not as heavy as it appeared. The grips moulded perfectly to Ella's hands, and she hefted it into the air, swinging it down the way Akhil had showed her with crude wooden imitations. It whistled as it sliced through the air.

"You'll grow into it," Akhil promised, taking the blade back and wrapping it up in the tattered cloth again. She handed it to Erika, who had been watching with an expression that was half sadness, half disapproval at the gift of a lethal weapon to her thirteen year old daughter. She sighed as she packed it away with their other things.

"One last thing," Akhil said. "I made you this. I'd meant to give it to you for you daybirth..."

"Birthday," Ella corrected gently. Despite Akhil's now fluent understanding of Federation Standard, some things still slipped through the cultural gap.

"Yes, that. Anyway, I carved this for you from an inert amber dilithium crystal I found." She pulled a chain from her pocket, from which hung an intricately carved disk of honey coloured crystal. The likeness of two Klingon hearts, veins like vines tying them together with complex and delicate knots, were surrounded by thin, thorny vines with spiny flowers interspersed along their lengths. Ella gasped that this delicate, beautiful thing could have been forged in a place as ugly as this.

"It is a symbol of love: even when surrounded by adversity, the two lovers can protect each other," Akhil said. "I hope you find that. A love as strong as steel and as consuming as fire, to protect against all danger and upset. As you know, the gods forged the Klingon heart from steel and fire, and your heart is every bit as valiant as the strongest of Klingon warriors. This is to remind you to seek out a heart as valiant as your own to be your mate. Do not settle for second best."

"Thank you," Ella said, accepting the gift. "I'll always wear it." She made good on her promise and clasped the chain around her neck, tucking the pendant under her shirt.

Taking one last glance around the room, Erika and Ella left, Akhil following them, her lips pressed into a hard line. Ella knew that Akhil would miss them much, much more than she wanted to let on.

They turned towards the exit passageway.

"Wait!" Ella cried, pulling away from her mother and dashing down the hallway towards the mess hall. Erika and Akhil followed, confused.

Bursting through the doors of the mess, Ella's eyes scanned the emptying room. She spotted her quarry and sprinted off towards him, leaving the Erika and Akhil behind.

Nero turned around just as she was skidding to a stop behind him.

"I'm leaving," she told him simply. It made her sad to think this may be the last time she would be able to speak Romulan to someone who would understand it. Ayel and Xandr, who were sitting at the adjacent table, stood and looked at Ella. "The Federation finally got it together enough to send someone to spring us from this place, and we're leaving with them. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you for all that you've done for me and taught me."

Xandr pulled her into a quick embrace, and Ayel slapped her on the back. Nero did neither; instead, he knelt down and gazed at her intensely.

"Be safe, wherever you go," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "And stay away from Vulcans at all costs. Also, if you hear about an attack on the planet Vulcan, get as far away as you can, as fast as you can." He then said something that was half to himself but still perfectly audible to Ella. "Wouldn't want that traitor Spock's failings to destroy you, too."

Ella didn't even ask. She had learned a long time ago to take everything the Captain said with a large grain of salt.

"Thank you," she said, pulling away and taking one last glance at her friends. Her lips pulled up in a wry grin. "Take it easy."

This statement elicited a rare moment of laughter from the Romulans, and it serenaded Ella as she walked away, towards her mother and Akhil. Towards freedom.

"Are you okay?" Erika asked her when she reached them. Ella nodded.

"I'm great, actually," she responded as they left the mess hall. She didn't look back. "I get to see the rest of what's out there. How awesome is that?"

"I must warn you now, baby, you may not like it," her mother warned.

"Are you kidding?" Ella scoffed. "I've lived in a _maximum security prison_ my whole life. Everything else is going to be cake compared to this."

"I hope so, for your sake." Erika sighed. Her daughter was probably right.

They reached the assembly of Starfleet officers at the main entrance. Commander Pike grinned again when he saw that they had arrived. Ella was beginning to like him. The Klingon politician was standing as far away from the humans as possible, glaring daggers at them. He looked as though he would rather pull off his own fingernails than relinquish two healthy workers.

"Ready to get out of here?" asked Pike, sounding for all the world as thought they were headed off to a dinner party. "Is that all you have?"

"Yes," Erika replied, handing them their one bag.

"Do either of you have a coat or anything to protect you from the cold?"

"We each have one in the bag," Ella replied, reaching for it. Pike relinquished it to her.

"It may be a few moments once we're outside for the _Yorktown_ to pick up my signal, so you'd best put those on," Pike commented as Ella and Erika pulled their coats out of the sack. They donned their jackets, wrapped their arms around themselves and headed for the passage to the surface. They turned just as they were about to exit, waving at Akhil. She stood tall, face impassive, but Ella knew she wasn't feeling impassive inside. She gave them one solemn nod and began to walk away.

It killed Ella to watch her go like that. Rushing back down to her, she grabbed her arm. "Come with us!" she implored Akhil.

"I get out of here in one or two years as it is," Akhil responded, her voice soft. She gently pried Ella off. "Then I can go home to Qo'noS. Continue to practice medicine, perhaps, or join the military."

"Be careful." Ella felt tears welling in her eyes, and hurriedly blinked them away.

"I will." With that, Akhil turned and resolutely walked away. Ella's heart twisted as she watched her go. She watched Akhil's receding back until it was out of sight then turned back to her mother and the away team from the _Yorktown_.

"Let's go," Ella said, sadness lifting from her heart as she considered the new adventure she was about to embark on. No more work every day in the dark, food that might actually taste like something, and to see the stars whenever she wanted! It seemed almost too good to be possible to Ella. But it was happening. She was sprung from the "clink", as her mother often referred to it, although as to why Ella was in the dark.

She was free.


	6. Chapter 6: Home

A/N: Just so you all know, the next couple chapters won't have too much Spock in them unless something chnges radically in my plot scheme, so just be prepared. I make up for it with other goodies, though, I promise!! Plus soon there will be lots of our favorite Vulcan. Cheers.

2246: Home

Walking into the classroom on her first day at a real school was frankly the most terrifying thing Ella had ever experienced. Sure, she could face down alien mass murderers with hands the size of hams, and yes, she was fine with cave-ins and rockslides several kilometres underground. But a roomful of human teenagers? She was terrified.

The door opened before her and she stepped into Mr. Hellman's eighth grade class. Twenty pairs of unfriendly eyes gave her the once-over, coldly appraising her outfit and stance. She knew immediately that she had worn the wrong thing; all the other girls were wearing shiny, shimmering things, from skirts to shirts to bodysuits, all very in-fashion for the twenty-third century. Ella wore blue jeans and a replica David Bowie t-shirt. She was definitely out of place.

"Welcome to Riverside Junior High, Ella!" came the bright voice of her new teacher, a rail thin man with a pencil thin moustache. He seemed eternally happy, and indeed, when Ella and her mother had met with him over the previous weekend, he'd been overjoyed to have a new student. He was also giddy at the thought of coffee, ecstatic at the mention of mathematics and elated about Ella's untied shoelace. Everything made him smile. It was endearing at first, but Ella saw it becoming exceedingly annoying.

"Um, hi," Ella muttered.

"Did you know that Ella just moved to Earth? She was raised _outside_ the borders of the Federation. Isn't that interesting? Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, Ella?"

Twenty pairs of eyes stared her down. "Well," she began, clearing her throat. "I like biology and... astrophysics and I hope to go to Starfleet Academy when I graduate. I speak three languages."

"Wow, that's pretty amazing! What languages do you speak?" Mr. Hellman was enthralled.

"Standard, obviously, Klingon and Romulan."

The class was struck dumb. This girl spoke the languages of the two greatest enemies of the Federation? Was she some sort of spy?

"That's... interesting, Ella. Why don't you take a seat? Let's see, where can I put you?" His eyes scanned the room. "Ah, it looks like there's an empty seat at the back there. Why don't you sit there?"

Ella was humiliated. All the other students were looking at her like some sort of pariah, and as she shuffled to the empty seat, she knew she wouldn't be making any friends today. She fought the lump in her throat. She missed her friends on Rura Penthe, as silly as it was. At least they talked to her.

"Hey there. It's Ella, right?"

Ella slowly turned towards the voice that had addressed her. It belonged to a sandy haired boy with bright blue eyes and an open, crooked smile. She blinked in surprise. Was he _smiling_ at her?

"I think this was the seat he meant," the boy continued when Ella didn't respond, gesturing to the empty seat at the table beside him. "Nice t-shirt, by the way. Gotta love Ziggy Stardust."

Still shocked, she slung the bag off her shoulder and slowly lowered herself into the aforementioned seat. She didn't take her eyes off the boy, convinced that if she did he would tell her it was all a joke and push her out of the seat.

"I won't bite, you know," he said, leaning on the desk. There were no dataPADDS on it, and he looked as relaxed as if he was at home in his pyjamas. "I'm Jim."

She cautiously took his outstretched hand. "Eleanor Roxanne Jones. A pleasure."

His grin widened, if that was possible, and he wrung her hand up and down with enthusiasm. Letting her go, he reached into his pocket and offered her a small, brightly coloured object. Ella stared at it.

"What is…that?" Ella asked, scrutinizing the object. She gingerly picked it up to examine it further.

"It's a candy, Ella. Haven't you ever had candy before?"

"No, what do you do with it?" she asked, cautiously sniffing it. There was a plastic wrapping on it, however, so she smelled nothing.

"Well, first you take off the plastic." Ella did so, then sniffed it again. It smelled sweet. "Now you eat it," Jim explained.

Slowly, Ella put it in her mouth. She let out a squeak of surprise when it hit her tongue, then surrendered to the bliss of how _good_ it tasted. It was so sweet and smooth and unlike anything she had ever tasted…

"That was…exquisite!" she exclaimed once it was gone.

His eyebrows flew up.

"Wow. You really haven't had candy before," Jim marvelled, staring at Ella's still rapturous face. "Where did you grow up that they didn't have candy?"

"It was just really remote, there weren't many luxuries," she said, avoiding his gaze.

"Well, now that you're here, you might as well experience some luxuries," he said, all business. Ella realized he was taking it upon himself to introduce her to said luxuries, and she felt a rush of gratitude and hope. Perhaps this making friends thing wouldn't be as fruitless as she thought.

He ended up walking her home at the end of the day. Ella and her mother were living with Ella's grandfather, Noah, in an old early 20th century house a few blocks from the school. It was one of the only houses from that era that had been preserved.

"This is me," Ella said when they reached the house, gesturing at it.

"You kiddin' me?" He stopped, stared at her, then pointed at the house beside hers, similarily restored and boasting an impressive oak tree growing just on their side of the fence between their two houses. Its thick branches spread towards both houses. "That's _me_."

"So we're neighbours?" Ella said.

"Yeah, we just moved in from outside of town. The stepdad didn't like all the work that went into the upkeep of a farm."

"Well, at least you don't have far to go to give me lessons on luxury," Ella said. They were standing at the end of the front walkway, and as they were chatting, a sleek groundcar pulled up in front of the house, just beside them. They stopped talking and glanced at it, then back at each other.

"Nice ride," Jim said appreciatively, eyes running along the sharp lines of the vehicle. "Where'd you get it?"

"It's not ours," Ella replied softly, staring at the man who was unfolding himself from the car. He wore a pair of dark glasses despite the tinted windows of the car and the partially cloudy sky, and his suit was elegantly cut and clearly well-made. His deep red hair was combed immaculately into place, and he had a jawline to make male models the galaxy over weep.

Ella had a pit deep in her stomach, for some reason she couldn't fathom, and she stared at the man warily as he rounded the car and started up the walkway. His eyes barely skimmed over Ella and Jim; his attention was fixed on the house.

"Look, sorry to cut this short, but I think I should probably go," Ella said, still looking at the man.

"Sure, no problem." Jim acquiesced easily, sensing that something was off here and not wanting to get in the middle of it just yet. After all, she probably didn't _want_ anyone in the middle of it. "Want to walk to school together in the morning?"

"Okay, meet me here at 0800," Ella said. "See you then."

"Cool." Jim paused as she started towards the house after the man. He liked her, but strangely he didn't want to date her. This was a rarity. Jim prided himself on never meeting a woman he didn't like (with the exception of is third grade teacher, but in all fairness, she was the closest human equivalent he'd ever seen to Jabba the Hutt), and Ella wasn't the one to break that streak. However, as she walked away, he didn't find himself glancing at her posterior or wondering how he would convince her to go out on a date with him. He instead found himself worrying why that man had unnerved her so. Jim smiled a little to himself. If all worked out, this could be a very successful friendship: he wasn't interested in her as anything more than a friend and she didn't have to worry about him stealing her girlfriend. He headed for home, pleased that his Monday hadn't turned out as badly as he'd feared.

Ella wasn't thinking about her new friend at that moment, however. She was thinking about why it was she felt she had to sneak in the back door to avoid the man at the front. She'd never seen him before in her life, of that much she was certain, but there was something undeniably familiar about him. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, however, and she was bursting with curiosity and, strangely, apprehension.

Sneaking around had always been one of Ella's specialities, and that Monday afternoon was no exception. She slunk into the kitchen, through the dining room and pressed herself to the wall that adjoined to the foyer. Through the open archway, she could hear her mother's voice, clear as a bell, speaking in shrill tones to the man on the doorstep.

"… think you can show up here, out of the blue, after thirteen years and expect it all to be okay? I'm sorry, but that's not the way things work with me, Damian, and you know it. Maybe that's the way it was when you married me, but over a decade in prison can change a girl for the better. Please leave."

"Who do you think arranged for you to get out of that place?" came what Ella assumed was the man, Damian's voice. It was quiet and smooth, a voice made for convincing and murmurs. Ella's guard went up at once. Where had she heard the name Damian before? "I had to bribe the Klingons to let you out once I learned you weren't dead, and they drove a hard bargain," the man continued. Ella heard her mother gasp. "You'd still be rotting alone on that rock if it weren't for me."

"She wouldn't have been alone." Ella felt this was where she should be stepping in, and she rounded the corner into the entrance hall. Erika stood in the doorway, barring the man outside. Ella could see the shock register on his face as he looked from Erika to Ella, then back again.

"Your niece?" he hazarded hopefully, suddenly looking very small.

"My daughter," Erika said as Ella came to stand beside her. "Looks a lot like her father, doesn't she?"

Then Ella remembered where she had seen the man's features. Not all of them, just the sharp cheekbones, pointed chin and big eyes. That, plus the scarlet hair, was what she saw every morning when she looked in the mirror.

"She's my…" The man called Damian was at a loss for words. Ella was confused at her own reaction to this news. Unlike the girls in the movies she'd watched on the trip back to Earth who had discovered their long-lost parents, Ella had no desire to run sobbing into his arms. She didn't feel overjoyed, or relieved, or validated in any way. She just felt angry. When Ella had asked her a few years ago to tell her about her father, Erika had told Ella simply that he had left when Erika needed him most, and that he was the reason they were on Rura Penthe. Ella had not asked again. She had felt no fondness towards the man then, and she didn't upon seeing him either.

"Daughter. Yeah," Ella said, finishing his sentence. "Only in a strictly biological sense, of course. You relinquished the right to call me daughter when you left. There are many people in this galaxy that are closer to being my father than you, many of whom aren't even human. So you'll excuse me if I have no familial love for you whatsoever. You've paid your dues to us: you got us out of prison, and for that I'm grateful. But you can go now. We want nothing more to do with you."

Damian was clearly shocked by her eloquent speech. He'd expected a little girl's reaction, but he'd gotten that of a young woman. He looked at Erika, hoping that she'd just cold the girl for being impertinent or something similar. But she just looked at the girl fondly before turning a cold gaze on Damian and nodding. He knew he was beaten. He hadn't expected there to be a kid, anyway. And Erika wasn't all that pretty anymore…

Ella and her mother watched him walk away.

"You okay?" Erika asked tentatively once Damian had driven into his groundcar. "That can't have been any less than freaky for you."

"I'm good, actually," Ella said. It was true. She'd always been good at rolling with the punches.

"Who am I kidding? You're always okay, Ella-Bella," Erika said, ruffling her daughter's hair. "But do you want to talk about it?"

"He doesn't really seem worth it, to be honest."

Erika laughed. "He's not. In that case, how was your first day of school?"

"Well, I made a friend…"


	7. Chapter 7: Doorstep

A/N: Hey, sorry it was a bit of a wait. I apologize, but this chapter is a bit of a filler chapter. I did manage to sneak some fun stuff in, however. I am a crafty one are't I? And modest, too... Anyway, the exitement is going to start building soon. I better get on it! Toodles!

2250: Doorstep

Sometimes Ella wondered why it was that she was friends with Jimmy Kirk. It couldn't be his looks; she'd learned to see past those long ago. His big puppy dog eyes held no sway over her, unlike most of the girls in their graduating class. It wasn't his rapier wit, for most of his jokes had stopped being funny after the first twelve times he told them. And it certainly wasn't his social skills.

Ella wound her way through her fellow graduates, trying her best to avoid the most severely inebriated of the lot. It was difficult: everyone wanted to celebrate their escape from high school in the loudest and drunkest fashion they possibly could. Or at least, everyone at this particular party did. The only reason she was there was because Jim had begged for her to go as his date after Aurelia had changed her mind. As she avoided a stream of projectile vomit, Ella began to think Aurelia was the smart one.

Un-sampled drink in hand, Ella searched for her best friend. Last she'd seen him, he'd been playing strip poker with the football team and the cheerleading squad, neither of which he belonged to. Always a bad idea.

She found her friend, nearly naked and laughing hysterically in the downstairs spare room. He was surrounded by a plethora of giggling girls that Ella recognized, strangely, as the entire staff of the high school's newspaper. She had been expecting cheerleaders, and instead she found tanked bookworms, all looking very different without their ever-present writing tablets and old-fashioned glasses. Ella had always thought their eyewear was ridiculous: it wasn't like anyone in the 23rd century actually _needed_ them; the girls just liked the classic image they created of intelligence.

"Uh, hi Jim…" Ella announced herself in an unnecessarily loud voice. "You're missing the party upstairs." _Why is it that I always seem to find him naked or nearly naked? _Ella mused as she stared down at her grinning best friend.

"Hey, Ellie, come to join the fun?"

"Not my type of fun, Jimmy, you know that," Ella responded.

"Don't I know it," he drawled. "Have you even had anything to drink tonight?"

"Me, drink this scum?" Ella replied, gesturing to her drink. "I'm a girl of finer tastes than that."

"That you are, my friend. You wanna go?"

"Are you offering to leave now, without even getting laid? Wow, you must really be drunk, you've forgotten who you are," Ella said, shocked. "Why?"

"You look awfully uncomfortable, and I can go one day without sex, believe it or not," he said, extricating himself from the wannabe journalists. Ella shielded her eyes as he pulled on his pants and slung his button-up shirt and tuxedo jacket over his arm, proudly leaving his chest bare. "Let's get outta here."

The girls protested for a moment before returning to their game and shifting their attention to one of the other males playing with them. They were too juiced to tell one from the other.

"Where's your pretty dress?" Jim asked Ella as they climbed the stairs. "You looked so lovely at the dance."

"I brought alternative clothing. I didn't want anyone puking on my dress," Ella explained. Her mother had picked up the dress after the dance had ended.

Jim stumbled and Ella caught his elbow, guiding him up the stairs and out of the house. Emerging into the front yard, Ella half-carried Jim over to his motorcycle and slung her leg over it. He followed her lead, climbing onto the bike behind her and wrapping an arm around her waist. Normally he wouldn't stand to ride on the back, but he must've known she wouldn't let him anywhere near the controls of a vehicle in his state.

Ella drove home slowly, fully aware that there would be more patrol cars than normal out, given it was prom night and everyone had a tendency to act stupid. They reached a roadblock, and after taking one look at Jim, they waved her through. They knew Jimmy Kirk all too well, and even though he was always good for a laugh when he was drunk, they didn't really want to deal with him that particular night.

When Ella arrived home with Jim hanging off her shoulder she was greeted with raised eyebrows from her mother. Ella knew better than to take Jim home when he was like this, given the last time she did he got in a shouting match with his stepfather that resulted in many broken dishes and significant bruising on both sides. Jim always loved to push boundaries, but usually he knew where to draw the line. That line didn't exist when he was drunk. Ella was just glad he didn't drink this much very often.

"Jimmy stayin' here tonight?" Erika asked as Ella attempted to direct him up the stairs. After four years back on Earth, Erika had re-acquired the slight accent that she had lost while away. Her daughter, on the other hand, stubbornly held on to the g's at the end of words, and there was a hint of an exotic accent to her voice, although it was certainly nothing Terran. Erika suspected that it was some sort of medley of all the languages she grew up hearing. Ella just nodded, grunting as she heaved the rather significant bulk of her best friend towards the second storey. "Don't let him vomit on the carpet," Erika added before returning to her bedroom.

"Ellie, what time is it?" asked Jim as they staggered towards her bedroom. "It feels like morning."

"Well, it is," Ella replied, shouldering open her bedroom door and dumping Jim onto her bed. "It's two o'clock in the morning."

"Maybe that's why I'm so sleepy," he replied, snuggling into her duvet and monopolizing the bed. Then he sat up, struck by a thought. "Hey, you leave the day after tomorrow, don't you?"

A thrill ran through Ella. What with all the excitement of prom night, her impending adventure had been all but forgotten. This surprised her: for the past year, ever since it had been arranged that she would be taking doing a cultural homestay program on Vulcan after high school, it was all she could think of. She'd taken an intensive course to learn their language, which had been easy given her prior knowledge of Romulan. Despite the distance, she'd traveled to the Vulcan Consulate in San Francisco to talk to as many Vulcans as she could get to acknowledge her about their culture, customs and anything else she could pry out of them.

"Yeah, I guess I do," Ella said, unceremoniously pulling off her jeans and t-shirt and donning pyjamas. Kirk was far too zonked to notice, and had laid back down, face in the pillow. Ella wondered idly how he managed to breathe in this position. She went to the bed and roughly shoved him to one side, throwing a comforter over both of them. "No cuddling this time, or you will wake up with one less appendage than you went to bed with!" she warned, knowing full well that he'd be back on her side of the bed by daybreak. He was an incorrigible snuggler. Hell, he was just incorrigible, period. She would miss him all the same. Two months on Vulcan, then she had only two days before leaving for a month-long internship at the University of Mississippi through their medical program. She'd be living with her great-aunt Patricia, who was notorious in the family for being the most "cantankerous, prudish woman this side of the Atlantic" (her grandfather's words, not her own). Then another three days and she was off again, this time to the hallowed halls of Starfleet Academy. She feared that her friendship with Jim would degrade with all the time they would be spending apart. Ella loved her best friend dearly and hated the thought of them drifting apart, but she knew how different they were. She had her goals and he had his. Not that his were apparent most of the time…

It was warm for the beginning of June, and Ella would have dearly loved to spread out across her bed to cool down. Telling herself that it was simply a practice run for the scorching summer she would face in Shi'Kahr City, she did her best to ignore the heat and slowly sank into sleep.

_She dreamed of her prom dress. It was a delightful confection of blue and silver tulle and sequins, with a full skirt and sweetheart neckline fit for a mid-twentieth century princess. Her hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders and she could see the glitter twinkling on her eyelashes. However, she was not in the ballroom where her prom had been held. She was in a desert lit only by starlight, the bottom of her dress rasping against the sand as she slowly revolved to distant, eerie music. She realized that she was being led by a partner, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't turn her head to see his face. They danced for what felt like hours, his warm arm bent around her waist and his hand clasping hers as though it were an extension of himself. Ella was concentrating too hard on trying to turn her head, however, and didn't grasp how lovely the moment was. There came a rumble from deep in the earth and Ella's head was finally freed. Triumphantly, she whipped her head around and grinned as she anticipated finally seeing his face. All she got was a glimpse of dark eyes before the hillside behind them collapsed and choking dust and grit filled her lungs. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see-_

Ella gasped and sat up, spitting the quilt cover out of her mouth. It seemed she had been attempting to eat the duvet in her sleep, and she rubbed a hand over her dry mouth, embarrassed. It made no sense; she certainly hadn't been eating anything in hr dream. Jim still snored contentedly beside her, albeit much closer than he had been before. Catching her breath, Ella lay back down and stared out the window, the dream slipping from her mind. Only twenty-four more hours…

* * * *

Spock paced, troubled. He never had nightmares: come to think of it, he never had dreams, period. The regimen of meditation he completed every night before going to bed had staved off all dreams for as long as he could remember, and here he was, kept awake by a silly dream. It was illogical.

He thought of the dream's ending and an involuntary shudder ran through him. All the dust in his lungs and the rocks that had pummelled his body had felt _so_ real, he almost expected that bruises would show up on his skin the next day. And the girl… all he could remember was that he was unable to look her in the face until the very last moment. That, and the very frivolous garment she'd been wearing. He could remember that quite clearly. It had been long, and the skirt had been made of layers and layers of a very fine mesh. The top had sparkled. _Just like her blue eyes_. Spock caught this fleeting thought and dismissed it. In fact, he dismissed the whole incident as an anomalous reaction to some unknown stimulus, and determined it would not be occurring again.

Kneeling and lighting some incense, Spock settled into meditation. However, instead of the mandalas and forms he was supposed to be envisioning, all that appeared on the inside of his eyelids were those blue eyes. He soon abandoned meditation and went to sleep. There were no more dreams.


	8. Chapter 8: Engulfment

A/N: Okay, we're getting to some good stuff! First off, I just want to thank everyone who's been reviewing, it's like sunshine and rainbows and puppies every time I get a new one, so keep it up. More reviews= I write faster, and that's always a good thing right? Sorry this chapter is a little shorter, but we've got something hapening finally so I hope that makes up for it! BTW, the point of view shifts every few paragraphs in this chapter because that was the only way to do it justice, please bear with me on this...

* * *

Engulfment

Ella's destination was on the nightside when the transporter's golden light deposited her on the planet's dusty surface. Fragile-looking lanterns lit the area that she had beamed into, and below the plateau that she stood on, the lights of a dwelling shone brightly. Ella looked around her. The stars twinkled through the atmosphere, seeming to wink at her playfully. She could just pick out Sol, shining at her like a beaming parent watching their child leave on their first solo adventure.

The planet's barren landscape provided a starkly beautiful picture in the light cast by Vulcan's sister planet, T'Khut. Formations of ruddy rock speared up into the sky, and in the distance she saw the outline of mountains against the stars. To her left, the dull lights of Shi'Kahr City were reflected against a bank of cloud that flowed lazily across the sky. A soft, warm wind ruffled Ella's long, wildly curling hair (oh, what she wouldn't give to have it behave as it had the day of prom!), and for a moment she closed her eyes, revelling in the sensation of its soft caress. She had finally arrived, after all her years of staring at this distant star through her telescope and fervently studying the culture and language of the planet. Everything about them fascinated her. A smile touched her lips, and she felt a strange sense of homecoming.

Spock kept his eyes on the trail as he climbed up from the house to meet their homestay student. He was irked by his lateness; she had been due to arrive one minute, seventeen seconds ago, and he had not been there to greet her. His mother had illogically ordered him to clean his room before the arrival of their guest, despite the obvious fact that she would not be spending any amount of time therein. Spock was also irked about his lack of information on the student. Behaving as strangely as usual, his mother had refused to give him any details on the student past the fact that she was, in fact, female. He did not know her age, her interests, her career focus or even what she looked like. The only thing he knew was that she was a human female. Amanda Grayson had been adamant that it be "a surprise". Spock disliked surprises, but accepted his mother as incurably illogical, and therefore understood that her decisions could not possibly follow the patterns of conventional logic.

As he neared the top of the path, Spock glanced up and saw her, and warmth bloomed in his chest at the sight. Her eyes were closed and a gentle smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. A breeze tugged at her hair, and the same wind seemed to gently nudge the small of Spock's back, pushing him along. He did not need its encouragement. He felt a pull in his chest, guiding him towards her. It puzzled him, as did his curiously emotional reaction to the sight of her. She was beauty, perfection and sunlight embodied.

Although he couldn't make out the finer details of her facial structure in the dim, flickering light of the lanterns, she struck him as incomparably beautiful. This was illogical; physical beauty was something that humans appreciated, not Vulcans. And yet, he realized as he approached her, by human standards, she was not a conventional beauty. Her cheekbones were slightly too sharp, her chin too pointed, and her face was faintly asymmetrical. But with the light of the lanterns behind her refracting off the dust particles that swirled around her in the breeze, she looked like an angel from human mythology to him.

The crunch of feet on gravel made Ella start, and she spun around in search of its origin. A slim, tall young man was coming up the path to the plateau. She watched in silence as he entered the sphere of light cast by the lanterns. He was undoubtedly Vulcan; she had not expected anything else. However, she had not expected him to be so… gorgeous. He had the characteristic greenish pallor, pointed ears and upswept brows of his race, and his keen, dark eyes regarded her with barely-concealed curiosity. His face was a study of angles, from the sharp cheekbones to his square jaw and the fringe of dark, straight hair that gleamed in the soft light. Their eyes locked, and she found herself unable to look away. He approached her slowly.

Ella remembered her manners.

"Live long and prosper," she said in Vulcan, raising her hand in the appropriate gesture.

Spock was surprised. From what he had heard of previous Terran exchange students, they rarely had a grasp of the Vulcan language. Few humans undertook the challenge of learning Vulcan, as it was very difficult for an individual who had grown up speaking Basic to make the switch to Vulcan. Basic, by comparison, was dreadfully easy. It had taken Spock no more than two months to master its nuances.

He realized he was being rude, not responding. He began to raise his hand to form the correct response, but then remembered something his mother had told him that afternoon.

"This isn't just a cultural experience for her, Spock," she had said. "It's also an opportunity for you to learn about humanity's culture and customs."

Spock had restrained himself from pointing out that living with a human mother was all the exposure to humanity any Vulcan could ever want.

"Now, what do humans do upon greeting each other?" his mother had asked, looking at him expectantly. He chose to apply her lesson in his greeting of his homestay student.

Spock lowered his hand and offered it to the girl.

"It is… nice to meet you," he replied in Basic, cringing inwardly at the words. They felt strange on his tongue.

Ella's eyebrows shot up. This was the farthest from what she had expected yet again, but in the interest of politeness, she stepped forward and clasped his warm hand in her own.

For a split second, Spock wondered how he could have forgotten the emotional transference that resulted from another being's touch. He was then swept up in the maelstrom of the girl's emotions, the hand that was icy compared to his own providing a conduit for her emotions, memories and thoughts. The intensity of it shocked him; he had never felt a connection this fierce and immediate, not even with…

They both stared at their joined hands for a long moment, then back at each other. Spock fought for control of Ella's undisciplined emotion, and Ella wondered how she could have been so stupid to forget that Vulcans disliked physical contact. She hastily tried to pull away, but found she couldn't. Although she had never experienced a mind-meld, she imagined that this was what it must feel like. Unwittingly, her mind opened to his.

Instantaneously, it was as though they had never been two individuals. They were one, the same, no separation between the personalities, memories and emotions. The wild, strong but quelled Vulcan emotions pervaded the bond and mingled with the milder but unrestrained human emotions, but there was no loss of control. Their minds were intertwined, knotted, locked together. The utter togetherness of it threatened to overload both of their consciousnesses, so unprepared for the depth of the power behind a simple touch.

_He saw the stars through her eyes for the first time, and they were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen._

_She saw __his bonding ceremony as he had: detached, numb, and frankly uninterested._

_He saw a golden-haired boy beating up another adolescent because he'd called the blonde's best friend, the girl now in front of him, a "Klingon's whore". _

_She saw the other children, sitting in a tight circle at lunch break. She knew they were intentionally leaving no room for him. She watched as he sat down alone at a long, empty table and quietly ate his lunch…_

It was too much for Ella. She was unprepared to deal with the sort of mental turmoil that came with such an instantaneous and explosive meld. Her hand jerked back, breaking the link. Her mind automatically categorized the incident as a danger to her well-being, due to the sheer immensity of what she had felt. It blocked the memories safely away in her subconscious. All that remained were the physical effects; dizziness, heightened heart rate, quicker breathing and slight confusion.

Spock, similarly, had never linked minds to a human before, besides his mother, whose mind was well trained. His mental faculties identified a threat to his carefully maintained control, and banished it to the furthest reaches of his subconscious mind. He was left with much the same effects as Ella. All this had occurred in less than ten seconds and neither of them had any memory of it.

Unable to think of anything else to say in the situation, Spock said, "Welcome to Vulcan."

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EEE I have discovered the horizontal line option!! PLEASE review, let me know how you're feeling about it all!!


	9. Chapter 9: Mother

A/N: So finally we have the ball rolling. Thought I'd try a different perspective for this chapter, give some alternative insight into this whole shindig. Enjoy!

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Mother

Amanda paced. She was anxious to meet the human girl who would be part of their family for the next two months, and she had nothing left to clean. So she paced. The greater part of her day had been spent scourging the house until it was scrupulously clean. This had not been an especially difficult task, as the house was usually impeccably neat. It had only been twenty minutes or so before their student was due to arrive that Amanda had happened to glance into Spock's room. His normally spotless space was strewn with computer printouts, and datadisks were scattered across his desk. The bed was unmade. Spock, sitting quietly at his computer, had been immersed in some last-minute research on human eating habits. She had immediately ordered him to tidy his room, which had elicited a sour glare and a grumbled "Yes, Mother" from her son. Of course, to anyone but his mother, his response would have appeared perfectly civil and compliant, but Amanda could see that he did not wish to do what she asked, probably deeming it unnecessary.

However, despite his insistence that he was uninterested in the idea of a cultural homestay program, Amanda had often found him sitting at his computer late at night, studying humanity. She decided that it would be best for him to learn about the human female by actually _talking_ to her, as opposed to reading her file. He had protested that this was illogical and inefficient, but Amanda refused to budge.

She worried about her son almost constantly. He was exceedingly introverted, but she knew it wasn't entirely by choice. Children of any race can be cruel, and she had found that Vulcan children were particularly adept at finding an individual's weak points. After years of taunts, outright bullying and finally ostracism, her son had retreated into himself, unwilling to expose himself to hurt again. Amanda would never forget the sight of her son hiding his anguish behind a tight lipped mask upon returning from school, day after day. His emotional control had been shaky at best at that point in his life, and he had gotten into fights with the other children often. The result was that Spock now kept fierce control of his feelings, and was the most tightly-wound teenager she had ever encountered, Vulcan or otherwise. He kept to himself in all situations, almost to the point of being anti-social. Amanda hoped that he would consent to at least spend some time with the homestay student. Perhaps, with time and some luck, he might even regard her as a friend.

Ceasing her pacing, Amanda went to the window and peered up towards the plateau above the house where the beam-down site was, and was pleasantly surprised to see her son greeting a young woman. Amanda was pleased to see that they were shaking hands; Spock had listened to her advice after all. A smile spread across her lips at the sight.

"Obviously the student has arrived," came a familiar voice from behind Amanda, and she turned to see her husband Sarek standing behind her, also gazing up at the two youth. "Why did we not accompany Spock to greet her?"

"I wanted him to meet her alone," Amanda replied, slipping her slim hand into her husband's broad one. "That way he has no choice but to actually interact with her."

"A logical course of action, beloved," Sarek replied, absently tracing patterns on the back of her hand as punctuation to the compliment. "Do you believe she will be able to… get through to him?" The words were clearly foreign to his lips, and he stumbled over them a bit.

"Honestly? I don't know." Amanda sighed. "Perhaps the simple fact that she isn't a Vulcan may help him open up. You know what they say about opposites…"

"I certainly hope you are right," Sarek said, and Amanda knew that Sarek worried just as much as she did about their son. "I do not wish for him to remain so isolated. Even a Vulcan craves affection, and he in particular requires it. He has us, certainly, but that simply isn't enough."

Sarek was struck by a thought.

"What of T'Pring?" he asked. "Does he see her often?"

"I do not believe so," replied Amanda. "He has never been overly fond of the girl."

"Nonsense. She is his betrothed. He can't help but be fond of her."

"Perhaps he is meant for someone else," suggested Amanda, "as you were."

"The situations are entirely different," insisted Sarek mulishly.

"I simply suggest that we leave him the opportunity to choose his mate," she said soothingly. "Do you remember what your decision to marry me did your relationship with your parents? Do you really want to force Spock to make that kind of sacrifice?"

"It isn't even an issue yet, Amanda," said Sarek. "He has shown no interest in anyone else."

"Just keep it in mind, my love," she said, sensing that she would get nowhere with him then and there. "Just in case."

The front door swung open in the entrance hall and Amanda looked at her husband excitedly. Although it wasn't immediately apparent, she came to see that he shared her sentiment. She hurried out of the kitchen, towards the front door, her husband hard on her heels.

They came through the door just as Spock was setting down a duffel bag. Good, he'd also followed Amanda's advice on that one too; offering to carry her belongings. Amanda hid a smile. Chivalry isn't dead, after all.

Amanda's gaze shifted to the newcomer. The girl was a few inches shorter than Spock, with poker-straight red hair and fierce blue eyes. She wore a simple white shirt with short sleeves and black pants tucked into a pair of shiny black boots. Amanda hid a smile. Even if the girl was doing it subconsciously, her smart outfit blared her future intentions loudly to the universe: this girl was Starfleet-bound.

"Live long and prosper, Ambassador Sarek," the girl said, addressing Amanda's husband in Vulcan, accompanied by the appropriate gesture. Her accent was flawless, and clearly she was familiar with his standing within the Federation. "Mrs. Sarek," she said, acknowledging Amanda with a nod of her head. "I'm Eleanor Jones, but you are more than welcome to call me Ella, everyone does."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ella," said Amanda, breaking the ice by reaching out and firmly shaking the girl's hand. She was impressed to see the girl's eyes widen and to see her quick attempt to pull back: she knew Vulcans didn't like to be touched. She'd done her research. Amanda alleviated her concern by reaching up with her other hand and tucking a strand of her brown hair behind her decidedly rounded, human ear.

Ella's eyes widened with comprehension and her cheeks coloured with mortification.

"I… I'm so sorry, I had no idea…"

"It's perfectly alright, you couldn't have known," Amanda interrupted. "My name is Amanda. You've obviously met my son, Spock…" Ella's gaze snapped back to Spock, and his to her. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, then they quickly looked away. The look did not go unnoticed by either of Spock's parents, and they shared a glance.

Amanda chose to change the subject.

"Are you hungry?" she asked. Ella shook her head. Amanda tried a different tack. "Then I'm sure you're exhausted," she speculated. "Spock, will you please show Ella her room?"

"Of course, Mother." Spock picked up the larger bag and proceeded out of the entrance hall and towards the bedchambers.

"I apologize for the lateness of my arrival," Ella said as she picked up the remaining, much smaller bag and followed Spock. Amanda and Sarek trailed her. "There was an awful mix-up with my ticket. As you know, I was supposed to arrive much earlier, but they accidentally scheduled me on the later one, so…"

"Not a problem, dear," Amanda reassured her. It wasn't the girl's fault. "We're just glad to have you here."

"Yes," Sarek interjected. "We are… gratified to be sharing our home with you." He said this slightly stiffly, but it was honest. Amanda knew that for all her husband's contact with humans, he was unaccustomed to dealing with human adolescents. She knew that would change as he got used to Ella. Sarek could be remarkably adaptable when he chose to be.

They reached the door to Sarek and Amanda's room.

"Sleep as long as you like in the morning, we don't have anything planned until the afternoon: we were thinking of going into Shi'Kar for a few hours, if you like."

"That sounds lovely, thank you," Ella replied, all politeness.

"If there's nothing else you need, my husband and I will retire now," Amanda said, and Ella shook her head again.

"We're so glad that you're here, Ella," said Amanda, surprising everyone, including herself, by pulling the girl into a quick hug. "Goodnight."

As soon as Sarek had closed the door behind them Amanda pounced. "Well, what do you think?"

"I do not currently have enough information to make an accurate analysis of her personal characteristics," replied Sarek in that exceedingly Vulcan manner that so infuriated Amanda sometimes.

"Nevertheless, did you pick up on anything strange between her and Spock?" Amanda asked, walking to her dresser and starting to change into her nightclothes. Sarek nodded.

"Yes, but I cannot identify what it might be."

Re-dressed, she walked over and clambered into the big bed. Sarek joined her a moment later. She reached out to him, and they intertwined their index and middle fingers in the Vulcan embrace of a married couple. "I'll keep an eye on it," said Amanda. "See if anything else develops."

"Do you think that he will… respond to her company?" Sarek asked Amanda in a quiet voice.

"You mean do I think he'll come out of his titanium shell and actually interact with her? I have no idea. But I really, really hope so," she finished rather dejectedly, although she knew that it was a hopeless case.

"As do I, Amanda. As do I." Sarek brushed his lips against her and leaned over to flick the switch that would kill the lights. They settled into their respective positions for sleep: Sarek lying serenely on his back, one arm across his chest and one encircling his wife's shoulders, Amanda curled up against him, her head on his shoulder and her fingers intertwined with his. But even when her husband's breathing became deep and even with sleep, Amanda's thoughts would not be quieted, and she lay awake for many hours, wondering what the next few months would bring for her only son.


	10. Chapter 10: Cohesion

A/N: Okay, so this chapter was never intended to go the way it did, but suffice it to say that it is one of the reasons this story is rated M. You've been warned. Don't judge too harshly, this is my first attempt...

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Cohesion

Spock stood in the doorway and watched as Ella looked around her room. It was not especially large or luxurious, but the look in Ella's eyes suggested that she saw it as a palace.

"Is the room satisfactory?" he queried softly, setting down her duffel inside the door.

"It's perfect," Ella said, looking around her. "Anything would have been perfect." She paused, drinking in her surroundings. "I'm finally here," she added in a low voice, intended to be to herself.

Spock's Vulcan hearing picked it up easily. "Explain," he demanded.

"I've been looking forward to this trip for a long, long time," she responded simply, walking to the window and throwing open the curtains, revealing the darkened landscape beyond. Sunset had been several hours before, and the valley below the house was shrouded in darkness. Ella grinned nonetheless.

"If there is nothing else, I will bid you goodnight, Miss Jones" Spock said, and Ella turned to face him. Seeing him now in the better lighting of the house, she could see that he was much better looking than anyone whose house she was staying in ought to be. His face had the angled look of a bird of prey, but his eyes were softer, more inquisitive than predatory. Beneath his nondescript clothing his body was slim but clearly in excellent shape. She forced her eyes back to his face. She wanted to talk to him all night, learn all she could from him, hear his opinions on everything. But clearly that would have to wait. He was undeniably brusque, perhaps more so than other Vulcans she had met, but she promised herself there and then that she would find a way to break through his exterior.

"Yes, goodnight, Mr. Spock," she replied, slightly deflated. He made to close the door, but a thought struck Ella and she rushed over, sticking her booted foot in the door to prevent it from closing.

"One thing. Call me Ella" she said with a slight smile.

"Very well," he said. "Sleep well… Ella."

Ella removed her foot and Spock very softly closed the door. Walking over to the single bed, she sat down lightly and fell backwards, staring at the ceiling. She was confused, but she had no idea as to why. The planet Vulcan was, so far, exceeding her very high expectations. Yet she found that when her thoughts turned to the young man in the neighbouring room, confusion clouded her mind, and she didn't know the source. There had been no events involving him to confuse her in the past quarter-hour that she had been on Vulcan.

She chalked it up to the disorientation of a new place, the planet's new atmosphere and slightly stronger gravitational pull and the heat. And was it ever hot! Ella had not been lacking in travel experience before coming to Vulcan, having explored much of her own planet and several others, many of which featured scorching deserts. This was a different sort of heat; less blistering, more permeating. Perhaps it wasn't the planet at all, she mused, but its people. It seemed that they had an uncanny ability to get under your skin. _One of them already has,_ Ella thought, the feeling of intense curiosity and fascination pertaining to Spock resurfacing. She burned with interest in what she could learn from him.

And those eyes! Dark and unfathomable, and at the same time curious and understanding, they had drawn her in from the moment she'd first seen him. Strange at it seemed, she felt as tough she had somehow… _seen_ them before. No, that was impossible. She'd never been in a position to meet him: she'd never been to Vulcan before, obviously, and he certainly hadn't popped into Riverside for a visit.

Setting her musings aside for the moment, Ella stood and rummaged in her duffel bag, pulling out her pyjamas and replacing her day clothes with them. Slipping beneath the thin sheets, a wave of exhaustion swept over her, and her eyelids drooped. The abrupt time changes had left her sleep cycle muddled, and her body cried out for rest. She complied, and within minutes her body was fast asleep.

Her mind, on the other hand…

Spock had completed much the same ritual in the next room, donning a pair of pyjama pants and climbing into bed. He chose to forgo his usual regime of meditation that night, and after he quieted his thoughts sleep overcame him quickly.

He should have meditated.

_The thermal pools in the Osana caves were a renowned tourist destination, but because of the magnetic nature of the caves where the pools were located there was no way to accurately map them. Thus it was easy to find a cavern to yourself, provided you were willing to search a bit. Spock had found one such cave, dimly lit by the phosphorescent insects that buzzed lazily around the stalactites. Assuring himself that the cave was in fact empty, he shucked his robe and waded into the water. _

_He allowed himself a gentle sigh as the warm water swirled around his naked skin, revelling in the heat. Stepping into deeper water, he let himself float for a moment. Hearing a slight sloshing sound, he regained his footing and whipped his head around in search of the noise's origin. _

_A shape was approaching through the gloom, and even Spock's excellent eyesight couldn't determine what exactly it was. He eyed it warily, hands balling into fists beneath the water as he prepared himself for a fight, should it be necessary. After all the years of bullying, Spock had thought it prudent to learn to defend himself, so he'd taken extensive classes in the art of _suus-mahna_. He was now very adept at the martial art, able to fell an opponent in one or two decisive strokes. _

_The shape had approached sufficiently for Spock to make out what it was. There was a young woman moving up out of the deeper water towards him. Her head was bowed, long tendrils of hair obscuring her breasts. He couldn't see her face, but as she emerged from the water, he had no lack of things to look at. Rivulets of water streamed off her pale skin, which glowed in the blue green light that refracted off the crystal walls of the cavern. Spock had backed up into waist deep water, and when she was about a meter away she stopped, water lapping at her smooth hips. _

_She raised her head, and fierce blue eyes pierced Spock with an intense gaze. He knew those eyes. They stared at each other for a moment. Eventually she spoke, and the one word she uttered summed up everything Spock could have possibly said._

"_Finally."_

_He reached for her, and they crashed together, water spraying in all directions as their bodies and souls collided. The feel of her warm, wet skin against his went straight in a searing line to his groin. Without thinking, he pressed his lips to hers, and the resulting explosion of sensation nearly knocked him off his feet. Her soft mouth beneath his could have only been described as heaven given form, if he had believed in that sort of thing. He splayed his hands across her back, pulling her closer and pressing the lines of their bodies together. He groaned against her and slipped his hands to her hips, skimming his palms over her soft skin. She shivered despite the steamy cavern, and he felt her nipples pebble against his chest. They deserved some attention. Tracing his hands up her ribcage, he cupped her breasts, rolling them in his hands, delighting in the feel of the supple skin against his fingers. When he experimentally flicked a thumb over one of her nipples and felt her shudder and arch towards him, he deduced that such an action was pleasurable for her. He repeated it with the other hand, and she broke away from their kiss, head falling back and exposing a long expanse of ivory throat. He eagerly pressed his lips to that delicate stretch of skin. Her hands were clutching his arms in a surprisingly powerful grip. _

_When she hissed his name through her teeth, reason flew out the window and instinct took over. With a growl deep in his throat, he tilted her head back up and captured her lips with his. Gently manoeuvring her towards the closest wall, he pressed her against the stone worn smooth by centuries of flowing water. Nudging her legs apart with his knee, he looked into her eyes. Even in the poorly lit space he could see acquiescence there, and when she lifted a leg and wrapped it around his hips, pressing herself against his erection, certainty was cemented in his mind. Gripping her leg in one hand and her waist in the other, he slowly buried himself inside her. _

_After the initial awkwardness of finding a rhythm that suited them both sparks flew, and the small part of Spock's brain that was still capable of cohesive thought was surprised they didn't combust. Their moans echoed through the otherwise silent cavern. Sensations increased as he found that they had melded unconsciously. He felt what she did, as well as his own pleasure. As their minds mingled, Spock's grip on reality frayed, and he knew it wouldn't be long before he-_

The cave dissolved as Spock was wrenched back to wakefulness by a powerful, debilitating climax. His blankets were thrown off, and he grabbed at the sheets, bucking at empty air as the result of the dream overcame him. He had to shove a fist in his mouth to keep from crying out, body afire and mind a blank. Shuddering, he exploded and fell limp onto his mattress, bare chest drenched with sweat. As he regained his senses, he was overcome with shame, and was appalled at his thoughts. Because he'd forgone meditation, his unrestrained subconscious had fed him a sexual dream the likes of which he had never even conceived of.

And about their new houseguest, no less.

On the other side of the wall, Ella had awoken in much the same manner, yelping in shock as she regained consciousness just in time to be plunged into a toe-curling, mind-blowing orgasm. Biting her lip so hard it bled, she resisted the urge to moan, cry out, anything to let out some of the energy inside her. She rocked her hips back and forth unconsciously, a low groan escaping her throat.

When the aftershocks had finally ceased, Ella gave a moment's thought to her dream and its result and came up with only one thing. There was only one thing she could say after having a sex dream about a guy she'd met only hours before.

_What the _hell_ just happened?_

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There it is. PLEASE review and tell me how it was and if it was awful and horrible. I need to know!!


	11. Chapter 11: Questions

A/N: So sorry about the delay in posting, the holidays sort of ate my life. I've gotten a few complaints about the previous chapter being out of character, but given T'Pol was able to have a sexy dream on _Enterprise_ because she neglected to meditate before bed, I thought Spcok should be able to as well. i hope it didn't distract from the story too much. Thanks to all that reviewed, BTW, I love them and keep em' coming!!

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Questions

Once Ella had calmed herself down enough, she sat up in her bed. The sky outside was just beginning to blush with dawn, and surprisingly she didn't dread the thought of getting up. She knew it was tradition for guests in a Vulcan home to rise before the family to prepare breakfast, and she fully intended to carry out this ritual. She stretched, got out of bed and slipped on a loose summer dress with cap sleeves. Only just dawn and it was stiflingly hot already. Ella ran a brush through her hair, tied it up into a loose knot at the base of her neck and quietly opened her bedroom door.

She narrowly avoided colliding with another figure in the dim hallway, and a firm, surprisingly chilly grip caught her arm to avoid impact, releasing it just as quickly. Ella jumped back, startled, and as her eyes adjusted to the shadows she saw that she faced Spock, who similarly looked unprepared for their meeting. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and his dark hair was dripping. His hand on her bicep had felt damp as well, and Ella could feel a few beads of cool water lingering on her skin from his touch. _Is that how Vulcans wake themselves up in the morning?_ Ella wondered. _With a cold shower?_

Then she remembered the dream she'd had and inevitably her cheeks started to flame with embarrassment. He couldn't possibly know about it, of course, but she was still embarrassed at her night-time thoughts. She'd just met the guy, for pity's sake! She averted her eyes from his distractingly bare chest and stammered something intended to pass for an apology.

"You could not have known I would be there," he said evenly, interrupting her smoothly. She silenced herself, feeling like a babbling idiot. "Why are you awake?"

"I'm going to prepare breakfast," she replied, holding up the package of gloves that she'd retrieved from her bag before leaving her room. She'd been told early on that Vulcans never touched food with their hands whilst preparing it, and Ella certainly hadn't wanted to offend anyone. "Isn't that what guests do here?"

Spock was, again, taken aback by Ella. First she demonstrated an extraordinary grasp of the language, then this in-depth understanding of Vulcan customs. He marvelled at her dedication to being informed about her destination. She must have spent months, maybe even years, amassing this knowledge and learning the language.

However, as hard as Spock tried to think about other things, the dream had taken up residence in the forefront of his thoughts and refused to vacate that space. As he looked at her, all he could think about was how she had felt in his arms, the way she had gazed at him, the touch of her skin…

He wrenched his thoughts away from the dream with much effort. It was an uncharacteristic spasm of his subconscious, nothing more. Besides, she certainly had no such thoughts in her mind pertaining to him.

"You are correct, it is customary for guests to prepare the morning meal," he said softly, still astounded. He kept his astonishment to himself as much as he could, however. Nodding once to her, he slipped past her and retreated to his room.

_That could have gone worse,_ was their identical initial thought. _Much worse._

* * * * *

Time passed swiftly after that awkward first morning, more quickly than Ella would have liked. A few days in, Ella and Spock established a pact in order to learn more about each other and their respective cultures: any question asked by either of them to the other would be answered as accurately and with as much detail as possible. Thus began what appeared to Ella to be the longest running game of Twenty Questions ever played. While they visited all the culturally significant points in and around Shi'Kahr, they discussed everything from personal hobbies to opinions on philosophy, from favourite sports to favourite books. Once Spock's parents discovered that their son was actually opening up to Ella, they tried to give them as much time to interact as possible. Therefore excursions that were intended to be taken by the family ended up being just the two of them most of the time. They didn't mind. They were quite content and, after the first week or so, quite comfortable being alone together. The dreams did not continue for either of them, and they were able to push the memory to the back of their minds.

However, there was one unspoken rule between them: they didn't touch. It was more than the simple fact that Vulcans could engage in telepathy through even casual physical contact. They both seemed to know, subconsciously, that strange things would occur should they touch.

As the weeks turned into a month, then into a month and a half, Sarek and Amanda were astonished and delighted to notice a change in their son. Granted, he was still a Vulcan, so the change was not immediately apparent, but anyone who knew him as well as his parents would notice that he had a bit more spring in his step, more energy in his voice and was more willing to spend time outside his room. Much of this time was spent with Ella, and Amanda and Sarek credited her with their son's transformation. They would be eternally grateful that Ella had come into their lives.

About a week before she was scheduled to go home, Spock was finally able to get Ella a seat in one of the Vulcan Science Academy's lectures. He had been calling in favours all summer, and none of them had proved fruitful until he had approached the healer Sayul. Granted, the man had not owed him any favors (if anything, Spock owed him favours, and many, for fixing him up countless times in his childhood) but Spock hoped, because of the personal connection, the healer might be able to set something up for Ella. By some miracle, there was a spot available in one of his Biochem lectures the week before Ella was leaving, and Sayul acquiesced to Spock's request.

Upon hearing what Spock had done for her, Ella hadn't been able to restrain herself: she threw her arms around his neck. As soon as she did, however, she pulled away again, apologizing vigorously. Spock wished to remind her that he had not pulled away, and tell her that he had not found it unpleasant; quite the contrary, truth be told. But he acted as though it had been unwelcome, because despite the way he was beginning to feel about her (he had no words to put to what he felt, which frustrated him) he knew she couldn't possibly be developing the same… attachment. He knew it was shameful for a Vulcan to cultivate such an attachment, especially to a human, but when he let his thoughts idle, he found them straying to Ella. So when she wrapped her cool arms around his neck, he tensed, but more out of shock and (although he would never admit it, even to himself) delight, rather than discomfort.

Ella wasn't perturbed by his reaction. She was too caught up in excitement at the prospect of actually sitting in on a lecture at the Vulcan Science Academy, a desire she'd had ever since she had learned of the prestige and academic reputation of the establishment. And a lecture that pertained to her intended career to boot! Ella hoped to pursue medicine at Starfleet Academy, thus the internship at Ole' Miss to give her a bit of a leg up, and to have sat in on a Biochemistry lecture at the Vulcan Science Academy would simply be the icing on the cake. Even if it was well beyond her level of understanding, it would still be fascinating.

The Science Academy was in session year round, with classes nearly every day. The day of the lecture, they were going to the Academy in the morning, then out to a set of caves on the edge of the Forge that Ella had wanted to explore. They rose early and caught a groundcar to the campus and spent an hour or so wandering around. Ella's eyes were wide the whole time, and although the Vulcan students stared at her, she grinned like an idiot. Spock was gratified that what he had done had made her so happy.

The lecture was even better than Ella had imagined. Because it was a first year class, she was able to follow almost half of what Sayul was discussing, which was impressive given he was speaking Vulcan. Spock stared at her, ignoring the lecture, amazed at her enthrallment. Most of the students looked significantly less enthused than her. He wished he had arranged this sooner.

She waxed eloquent about it as they exited the lecture hall with the mass of students.

"Wow, I had never even conceived of half his theories and connections before that lecture! He's a genius! Those points he was making about the breakdown of proteins in…"

Spock let her ramble. After a few frenzied minutes of recap, she lapsed into silence, awed by all the knowledge she had just assimilated. As they walked towards the groundcar station, they were cut off by a group of students.

"Is this your human cultural homestay student, Spock?" asked the shortest of the boys. His voice was the closest to a sneer Ella had yet heard from a Vulcan's lips.

"Yes, Vorret, this is Eleanor," Spock replied, looking down at his former tormentor. After the boy's initial growth spurt, all his classmates had outstripped him, and, much to his own frustration, he was now the shortest boy in their year. "Ella, this is Vorret, one of my classmates."

"Did you not intend to introduce me as well?" came a cultured voice from behind Vorret, and a young woman stepped forward. Ella's eyes slid over her, taking in her delicately beautiful features, slim build and long, straight, lustrous hair with a rather jealous eye. She also saw how thinly veiled this Vulcan's emotions were. They were easily discernable, even to a human, which was saying something. Ella's guard went up immediately.

"Of course, T'Pring," Spock said. "Ella this is T'Pring, my… intended."

"I am his bondmate," T'Pring clarified. Ella felt her stomach ball up and she looked at Spock. She'd known that Vulcans still practiced arranged marriage, but Sarek and Amanda hadn't struck her as the type of parents who would do that. Perhaps she had misjudged them. She told herself that she only reason her chest felt like it was being drawn into a corset was because she was shocked. It couldn't possibly be jealousy. No way.

"Nice to meet you," Ella said, nodding at T'Pring. "Spock, we should get going, it's a ways to the caves on foot and we don't want to be out too late." As she spoke, she looked directly into his eyes, imploring, silently, that he'd agree and they could get out of there. Ella got a bad feeling from the group of students that were slowly moving into a circle around them.

"But we have just become acquainted," Vorret said, stepping closer to Ella. "I would very much like to learn more about humanity from you."

"Some other time, perhaps," Ella responded as politely as she could, instinctively shrinking closer to Spock. About a week before, Amanda had divulged to Ella the reason that Spock was so introverted, and Ella believed she was facing his abusers at that moment, though Amanda hadn't told her their names. Ella was also was also aware of how much stronger Vulcans were than humans. She had no desire to tangle with these people. "Spock, we really ought to get going." She touched the back of his hand to reinforce her point. It was a fleeting brush, but T'Pring eyes zeroed in on it and narrowed.

"How dare you touch my bondmate in that manner, you stupid girl!" she said, emotional control slipping in her anger. "Filthy human whore, he is not yours to touch!"

"That will be quite enough, T'Pring," Spock said in a quiet voice, glaring at her icily. Ella was shocked, and despite herself, a bit hurt. Even though she was well aware that neither of the insults applied to her, the word "whore" had never failed to sting her since the jibes of her peers in high school about being a "Klingon's whore". Ella had forgotten that Vulcans kissed with their hands, and was embarrassed at her foolish gesture. Spock must thing her, at best, addle-brained and at worst, very forward. She walked away, pushing through the ring of students and striding purposefully towards the station. Spock didn't catch up with her until she had reached the station, and she turned her back to him, still mortified.

They were silent almost the whole ride home, and she faced away from Spock the whole time. He wondered what he'd done to make her so angry with him that she wouldn't look at him. It was until he heard a tiny sniffle that he realized she was crying.

"She was out of line," he stated. Ella didn't turn around. "And she was incorrect. None of her statements describe you in any way, and I was not offended by your action. I fully understand how difficult it must be to adjust to a different culture, and you cannot be expected to remember every tiny facet of said culture at every moment of the day. I am aware that you try to, but it is simply an inevitability that some things will not be ever-present." He paused. "I do appreciate your effort, however. It is most impressive."

"Thanks," was all she said. Spock wondered if he had said the wrong thing, but the sniffling stopped and she turned back towards him, a tentative smile on her face.

"Ready to do some spelunking?"

* * * * *

It was a two hour walk to the caves from Spock's home, but the terrain was fairly flat and the rocks that thrust out of the ground provided shade for most of the journey. They reached the caves just past midday, and sun streamed into the caves through fissures in the roof as they explored. As they moved further into the caves, their question war recommenced.

"Favourite food," Ella said as she climbed over a fallen stalactite.

"Vegetarian curry, with tofu and _qir'lal_ root" Spock replied. "My mother is very adept at preparing this dish."

"So I've noticed," Ella said, having sampled it a few weeks before. "Your turn."

"Best place to-…" he began, but was cut off by a rumble. He whipped his head towards the exit, but by that point they were deep into the network and escape wouldn't be quick. The ground began to shake violently, and the ceiling threw pieces of itself at them. Ella shrieked as she was knocked down by a boulder. Spock abandoned all thoughts of running and dashed over to where she had fallen, arms up to defend himself against the falling rocks. She was semi-conscious, and a large boulder was crushing one of her legs. There was another, deeper rumble and more rocks began to fall. Spock covered her body with his, doing his best to protect her head and neck from the potentially deadly natural missiles. He felt something strike him in the back of the head and the world blinked out of existence.

* * *

Cliff hanger (sort of)!! Want the update to come faster? Review and it'll be up sooner... Ahahahh I love blackmail.


	12. Chapter 12: Pressure

Since you all asked so nicely...

* * *

Pressure

Night had descended quickly, and the heat dissipated extraordinarily fast in the dark. Ella was shivering, the movement jarring her trapped leg and causing explosions of pain in the injured area. But she couldn't stop trembling, and it only became worse as the night became deeper. The thin thermal blankets that they had piled on top of her didn't help; the cold seeped into her bones through the frigid rocks that she lay on.

"Y-you should r-really g-go," she stammered to Spock, who had just succeeded in widening the hole in the rubble enough for him to slip through. He had woken from unconsciousness before her, and despite the fact that he had used his body as a living shield, he was less battered than she was. "I'll b-be fine… you'll b-be back in a f-few hours anyway."

"I will not leave you. You are injured and trapped, and the desert is a very dangerous place," Spock replied, his tone leaving no room for argument. He came back down to sit cross-legged beside Ella's prone form and turned on one of the lamps they had brought with them. The bright, reddish light tried in vain to fill the space, failing to illuminate all the dark little crannies in the rock where darkness still lurked.

Ella chose to argue. "Y-you're being illogical, S-Spock!" she accused him angrily, propping herself up on one elbow despite how much it hurt. "Nothing c-can g-get at me h-here, and it's n-not as though I'm g-going to get h-heat stroke or-"

Spock placed a gentle finger on her lips to quiet her, ignoring her unintentionally substantial insult. A spark passed between them, but they were used to it from the occasional brush of skin they shared, and it now mostly escaped their notice. This, however, was one of the reasons they tried not to touch: if a shock like that could happen at just a fleeting touch, what would happen if the period of contact was extended? They didn't know, and neither of them was ready to find out. Yet.

Ella stared down her nose at his hand, then up at his face. It was lit poorly by the fluorescent lantern, but there was a tenderness in his features that she had never seen before.

"I am not going anywhere, Ella," he said quietly, removing his finger from her lips and, after a second of hesitation, brushing a strand of her red hair off her face. He pulled away rather quickly, avoiding her gaze. "My parents are aware we are out here; all we must do is wait until they realize something is amiss. They will send out a search party to look for us in time. All we have to do is keep you warm until then. How does your leg feel?"

"P-peachy," Ella replied through her teeth. She became serious. "It hurts l-like hell, Spock. M-my leg is c-crushed under a b-boulder."

"Is there anything I can do to ameliorate your situation?"

"Can we possibly get one of these blankets underneath me?" Ella asked. "The rocks are awfully cold. Plus, they're digging into my side pretty sharply."

"I will attempt it, "Spock replied, lifting one of the blankets off of her. He attempted a few methods of getting it beneath her, all of which were unsuccessful. Finally he simply elected to wrap his arms around her and tug the blanket down under her that way. It snagged on rocks and on her clothing, but eventually he got it mostly under her. He gently fixed her jacket, which had been bunched up when he was working the blanket underneath her.

Ella's shivering did not abate. If anything, it was more violent than before. Spock could do nothing but sit and watch helplessly.

"D-distract me," Ella said. "Ask me s-some more q-questions."

"If you like," Spock replied, shifting in an attempt to find a position that didn't involve his tailbone becoming intimately acquainted with a rock.. "What is your favourite… animal?"

"Th-that one's easy," Ella replied with a tight smile. "The ostrich."

"Is that not a large, flightless bird native to Earth's continent Australia?" he asked, slight puzzlement evident in his voice. Ella nodded. "For what reason?"

"She's an enigma. She's a bird that runs instead of flying. Even though she's t-technically a b-bird, she can't f-fly with the r-rest of them," Ella explained, a touch of pity in her voice. "Sh-she's an outcast even among h-her own k-kind."

"Your logic is flawed," Spock stated. "There are other ostriches to share her flightless state with her. She is not an outcast among them."

Ella rewarded him with a pained smile. "I guess you're right. Your turn."

"My turn to what?"

"Your turn to answer one of my questions," Ella replied. "Who's your favourite Earth poet?"

"Terran poetry is almost all concerned with emotions or religion," Spock began, "so it all provides an interesting view of the human psyche. However, were I made to choose a favourite, it would be between John Milton and William Butler Yeats."

Ella's eyebrows shot up. She was impressed. Yeats was her favourite, too. "'Go and love, go and love young man, if the lady be young and fair. Ah penny, brown penny, brown penny…'" she recited, her voice becoming steady for a few moments.

"'I am looped in the loops of her hair,'" Spock finished, his eyes on Ella's curls that rested on the stones. Setting his trepidation aside for a moment, he tenderly brushed one of the wispy curls that lay across her cheek off of her face. Her breath caught in her throat at this shockingly intimate gesture. This was highly atypical of Spock's personality, and indeed, of any Vulcan personality. They did not touch readily, even within their own families, and here he was, touching her lips and fiddling with her hair. It was unheard of and it made Ella anxious. Then again, just being around him made her anxious. Anxious and exhilarated. In the space of two months, she'd felt breathless most of the time, and it wasn't because of the thinner atmosphere. It was because most of her waking hours were spent in his company, and being around him sent butterflies dancing in her belly.

"You sure do know Yeats," Ella said, breaking the spell of the moment and distractedly pushing her curls behind her ear. Spock pulled away, seeming to realize the magnitude of what he had just done. Electricity buzzed under both their skins from the contact.

"Indeed. Now it is my turn." He paused to think, and Ella managed to regulate her erratic breathing within that time. She couldn't seem to get the memory of his finger against her lips out of her head.

He puzzled over his next question for several minutes. There were many things he _wanted_ to ask her. He wished to know what she looked for in a companion, what she thought of as the "perfect date" (Spock had researched human courtship rituals and the "date" had been a prevalent theme) so that he could then re-create it, whether or not she had a significant other at home on Earth. He wanted to know what she thought of him, Spock: whether he was just the person she lived with and therefore had to tolerate, or a friend or... something more? But he could not ask her these things. It would not be proper.

"If you could make one wish, what would it be?" he finally compromised on, deciding that this question was ambiguous enough.

Ella didn't respond for a few moments, and the look on her face told Spock that she was contemplating her answer. "I'd wish that my mom had never been never been taken prisoner by Klingons."

"Your mother is being held by the Klingon Empire?" Spock asked, shocked. He had been under the impression that her mother lived on Earth.

"She was, for a while. As was I." Ella took a deep breath and explained her upbringing to him. He was only the second person she'd ever told the whole story to. All the rumours that had circulated in high school had stemmed from her knowledge of Klingon; nobody really knew the whole story. Only Jim knew the truth.

"So you would wish for a childhood away from Rura Penthe?" Spock asked once she was done. He was dumbfounded by her cavalier explanation of a childhood behind bars. Should she not be more traumatized?

"No, I was okay there, really," she responded. "It was really hard on my mom though, and I would want her to be spared that if it could happen."

"You would use that one wish to make another person's life more bearable?" He was taken aback for the hundredth time by Ella's unique view on things. This only served to show him that she was more generous than he had originally perceived.

"Why not? My life hasn't been all that bad."

She had spent thirteen years in a maximum security prison and she thought her life "wasn't that bad". Spock had stopped being amazed. It seemed that she was simply naturally perfect, so any new facet of that should not surprise him.

"My turn," she said, shifting in an attempt to find a comfortable position. The shift jarred her leg and she hissed in pain. Spock looked down at the injured appendage and was horrified to see blood dripping from her leg and disappearing between the rocks.

"Waiting for rescue is no longer an option, it seems," Spock said. He stood up and proceeded to throw his weight against the rock in an attempt to shift it. Ella keened in pain at the pressure and grimaced, re-opening some of the barely closed scrapes on her face. Seeing her face and the pain she was in gave Spock the extra burst of strength he needed to move the rock. He rolled it aside and surveyed the full extent of the damage.

Ella's calf had been mashed against the ground, and it looked broken in at least two places. It was bleeding heavily, and her skin was little more than a pulpy mass where the rock had crushed it. There was no way she was going to be able to walk.

"Put your arms around my neck," Spock said, and Ella nodded, biting her lip and locking her trembling arms around his neck. He lifted her, abandoning the back packs he had retrieved for them. They had left the bags by the mouth of the caves, and that was as far as Spock had been willing to go away from Ella. She was lighter than he had expected: she was not an exceptionally tiny person, and her frame was graced with more than a little bit of muscle. He made for the exit as fast as he could.

The most difficult step was manoeuvring her through the hole he had made in the rubble. After that, escape was relatively easy. Spock glanced down at her often, and as they moved out of the caves, he noticed she was becoming paler and paler. Apprehension curled in his belly.

T'Khut lit their way once they emerged into the desert, and the path was clearly marked. Spock stumbled towards the lights of the city, knowing that he had a two hour walk in front of him, perhaps more if he did not speed up. The thought disheartened him.

"Ella," he said, shaking her slightly. Her eyes had drifted shut and her grip on his neck had become slack. "Ella! Wake up!"

It was no use. She whimpered a bit, softly, then went limp in his arms, head lolling back and arms releasing from around his neck.

_Nononono…_

He began to run. Although he knew he would not be able to sustain that pace for the full distance, he hoped that he would perhaps meet someone on the trail who could help them. He wished they had kept the communicators in the bags, instead of in their pockets, where they'd been effectively crushed by the rockslide. This could have all been remedied with one working communicator.

His keen ears picked up voices in front of him. He began to yell, and beams of light lit the rocks in front of him. Relief (if he were to admit to such an emotion) coursed through him as he saw a group of people running towards him. His mother and father were among them, as was Sayul. They reached him and all started speaking to him at once. Even with his superior intellect and ability to process many conversations at once, Spock was overwhelmed. All he wanted was to get Ella help.

Someone tried to lift her from his arms, but he pulled her closer to himself. He was going to carry her until he put her down on a hospital bed. It was only logical: the only way for him to truly be sure that she got to a hospital was to get her there himself. Sayul pulled out a communicator and calmly asked for an emergency medical transport to the Academy's medical facility. As warm light enveloped Spock, he relaxed, finally.

She would be alright.


	13. Chapter 13: Wash

Wash

Ella jolted from sleep, greeted by the unwelcome buzzing of the alarm on her computer. Groaning, she pulled the thin coverlet up over her head, shoving it into her ears to muffle the noise. She didn't want it to be this day. She had to go home.

She'd been released from the hospital two days before, and Amanda had insisted upon bed rest as soon as they had gotten her home. Sayul had succeeded where countless other healers had failed in the past: Ella's body, for some reason unknown to her doctors, did not react well to accelerated healing. It simply did not work on her. Sayul, however, had worked miracles. The mashed-up flesh on her leg had been completely restored after the five days she'd spent in the hospital, and the broken bones had healed nicely. Her leg was still weak, but she could walk on it in a semi-normal fashion. They'd left the cuts on her face and arms, however, wanting to save all her energy for her leg.

"Sleep!" she grumbled at the computer, which had been trained to recognize her voice. It turned off with a pleasant beep, and the room was silent again. Almost.

Ella's ears picked up a sound that she had never associated with the planet Vulcan. It was soft, and at first she couldn't be sure if it was actually the fountain in the courtyard she was hearing, and not this unexpected occurrence. But it soon dawned on her that she would have noticed the sound of the fountain before, had she been able to hear it.

It was raining.

Flinging herself out of bed, wide awake, she limped out of her room and into the hall. Following the hallway into the common area, she looked out one of the large windows. The sky was dark with clouds, and the stones in the courtyard were slick with rainfall. Fat drops of water fell from the sky, scattering on the buildings and on the ground.

"It never rains here during the summer."

Ella whirled to see Spock sitting on a stool in the kitchen, fully dressed and looking impeccable, as always. She became aware that her hair was most likely a rat's nest and she wore no makeup. Her skin was still recovering from the rockslide, and there were cuts and scrapes on her exposed skin that she was sure looked disgusting. The thin white silk of her Vietnamese pyjamas suddenly felt very scant, and Ella crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yeah, I was surprised when I woke up," Ella said. "Sorry, I didn't think anyone would be up, so I didn't put on..."

Spock cut her off. "Do not apologize. It does not offend me."

"That's good," Ella said, retreating towards her room. "I just have some more packing to do, and then we can get ready to…go." She hesitated on the last word. After everything that had happened in the past few weeks, she didn't want to leave. Part of her wanted to see more of Vulcan, meet more of its people, but a more significant, and secret, part of her wanted to stay for him. She wasn't ready to leave _him_ yet.

Spock nodded once, then turned back to the counter and whatever it was he had been doing before Ella walked in. Ella turned back to the hall, her uneven footfalls light on the tiles. Spock listened to her go, and sighed quietly. If he experienced emotions, he imagined that he would be rather melancholy at that particular moment. He had grown… favourably accustomed to Ella's presence and the lack of that presence would be disconcerting. This was unexpected; he had not anticipated that thoughts of her departure would affect him so adversely. Confused, he attempted to turn his thoughts to the mathematical problem he was attempting to solve. It was a distraction, nothing more, but he found it ineffective. She would not stay out of his thoughts.

In his mind's eye, he recalled the way she had looked upon entering the kitchen a few moments before. Curly hair wild from sleep, lips a little puffy, eyes half-shut. Her pyjamas, a shirt and capris, were slightly off kilter, the distractingly thin top pulled up ever so little to reveal a thin slice of midriff…

Spock cleared his throat, embarrassed at his own thoughts. He concentrated on the math as hard as he could, repeating the equation over and over in his head until it blocked out everything else.

An hour later, she emerged from her room, her things packed into the duffel she had brought them in. Her hair was brushed and hung loose on her shoulders, like the day Spock had first seen her. She wore some makeup, he noted, but most of it was an attempt to cover the scrapes on her face. He noted that her skin was quite a bit darker than when she had arrived, and remembered how exposure to the sun affected a human's skin.

Setting her bag down gently in the kitchen, Ella looked around. Spock saw that she looked sad as she gazed around the room, and he realized that she was unhappy about leaving. He was gratified to see that she had enjoyed her stay enough that she would miss Vulcan.

"Where are your parents, Spock?" Ella asked, eyes still scanning the room as though she expected them to pop up from behind the sofa.

"I suspect they will be down momentarily to see you off," he responded, glancing at the hallway. "They wished for me to accompany you to the beam-out point, so that we might have some more time to say our…goodbyes. Which I find illogical, as I imagine they would want as much, if not more, time than me to say their farewells."

"I'm sure." Ella was trying to take in as much as she could before she left: the slight smell of incense, the soft lines of the architecture, and, most importantly, the people. She wished she had taken more pictures.

"Ella!" came an exclamation from the doorway that led into the hall. Ella turned to see Amanda, followed closely by Sarek, descending the staircase. "You sure got ready quickly."

"It's like pulling off a bandage," Ella responded. "It hurts less if you do it quickly."

Amanda gave her a small smile and walked towards her, arms outstretched. Ella accepted the invitation, embracing the older woman. Amanda smiled again, this time to herself. She would miss Ella very much, more than she had thought she would.

Pulling away, Amanda held Ella at arms length, taking one last good look at the young woman's face. Amanda could see that it had changed, somehow, since Ella had arrived almost two months before. The change was in her eyes, and Amanda recognized it. She saw a mirror of her younger self, after her time spent at the Vulcan consulate on Earth, after she had met Sarek. It was a brightness in Ella's core that shone out through her eyes. Oddly enough, she was reminded of a quote from her least favourite Shakespeare play. Despite her distaste for the plot and characters, some of the poetic lines had stuck in her mind, and looking at Ella one came to mind: "Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!". If Shakespeare had had the opportunity to see Ella at that moment, Amanda knew he would have found validation for his poetry. However, Amanda doubted that even Ella was aware of how bright she shone, and if she couldn't see it, Spock sure as hell wouldn't. He was probably entirely ignorant of how Ella reacted to his presence. Amanda wondered if they would realize before or after it was too late.

"We will miss you," Amanda said at length, letting Ella go. "It was a joy to have you here, and you know you're welcome to return any time you want to."

"Thank you so much, Amanda," Ella replied. "I've had the most amazing two months of my life here, and I've got you to thank. I'll miss you too."

"It has been… agreeable to have you with us, Ella," Sarek added, reaching out and clasping one of her hands for a scant moment before dropping it.

"Thank you, sir."

"You'd better be going, wouldn't want to miss your beam out," Amanda said, giving Ella another quick hug and gesturing towards the front door. "We don't have any umbrellas, I'm afraid, so you'll just have to get a little bit wet on your way over."

"I don't mind, I like the rain," Ella replied with a smile, turning to pick up her bag. She found it gone, and, looking up, saw that Spock already had it slung over his shoulder. From anyone else, she would have protested this treatment, stating vehemently that she was a woman, dammit, not a china doll. But this time, she felt no desire to say anything remotely close to that. She just found it endearing this time.

They left the house after a few more hurried farewells from Spock parents, and were instantly assailed by the rain. It soaked straight through Ella's thin summer clothing to her skin, but she didn't mind: the rain was warm. They rushed through the courtyard and out into the street, as fast as Ella could go with her healing ankle. Her beam-out point was different than her beam-in point, and they had further to go to reach it. It was in a small, tree-lined plaza near Spock's dwelling, still far enough away that they were thoroughly drenched by the time they reached it, five minutes before she was scheduled to beam out.

They stood beneath a tree in an attempt to escape the worst of the rain. Ella turned to face Spock, gazing at him intently. She knew he would think it strange if she whipped out her camera and took a photo just then, so she did her best to cement how he looked in her mind. She refused to forget his face.

The rain had plastered his hair to his scalp, and it dripped water down his face. Ella did her best to ignore how tightly the rain had moulded his light blue shirt to his torso, but there was no way she could stop herself from glancing down a few times. Her cheeks became redder with every glance, and she hoped he didn't see it. There were raindrops caught on his dark eyelashes. His deep brown, almost black eyes shone in the diffused light of the lamps that had been lit in the trees in response to the darkness of the day. He seemed to be studying her too, eyes flickering as they surveyed her face.

He _was_ studying her, although he wouldn't have admitted it to save his life. He was taking in as much information about her appearance at that moment as he possibly could, so as to form a clear mental picture later on. The way her curls dripped with rainwater, her bright blue eyes, the flush of her cheeks and her slight smile… he wanted to memorize everything about her.

He had stared longer than her, and she noticed. "What are you looking at?" she asked, clearly self-conscious.

"You," he responded before thinking, and resisted the urge to clap a hand over his mouth. He never spoke before thinking, especially not about things like that. "What I intended to say was…"

"It's okay, I know what you meant," Ella said, even though she didn't. At least, she didn't believe he could have possibly meant what she wished he'd meant.

"You do?" Spock asked, mildly panicked.

"Not really," she conceded. "It doesn't matter. I shouldn't have asked, it was just an awkward question. Clearly you were looking at nothing, just staring into space or… or something."

"I was certainly not looking at nothing," Spock said. "You are the furthest thing from nothing." He paused, having spoken without thinking again. "By that I mean that you have mass, and therefore you could not viably be classified as nothing."

"That's… sweet," Ella replied, looking at him quizzically. They lapsed into silence, the rain making the only sound in the plaza. Ella looked over at the fountain, knowing that soon she would have to brave the rain again to go to her beam out point, on the north side of that fountain. She only had about three minutes left. A lump formed in her throat at the thought.

"I should get going," she said, reaching for her duffel. "Thank you for everything."

"You are welcome," Spock said, standing stock-still, posture stiff. "Have a safe trip." He wouldn't look her in the eyes. Ella felt as though a crushing blow had been dealt to her chest.

"I'll just… yeah," Ella said, feeling lame. "Goodbye, then." She took her bag and hurried out into the downpour, looking down and pretending that all the water running down her face was rain. She refused to admit that there might be tears mixed in.

Reaching the beam out point, she stood facing away from where she had left Spock standing beneath the trees. She assumed he had left already, having said his goodbyes. He probably had something more important to do anyway, but Ella couldn't bear to turn around and see that the plaza was empty.

She didn't hear the quick footsteps coming up behind her, and jumped when she felt a hand rest lightly on her shoulder. Whirling, her weak leg gave out and she slipped, crashing heavily into Spock's sodden chest. He caught her, and for a moment, she just stared. What was he doing back here?

Spock interrupted her staring by placing a gentle hand beneath her dripping chin and tilting her face up. Ella swallowed audibly, aware of how close they were and how precarious their position really was. If someone saw…

"I tried," Spock murmured. "I attempted to stop myself, but I failed. And I could not be more… relieved. I cannot believe that I intended to let you go without doing this."

"Doing wha-?" Ella started to say. She was interrupted mid-word, his eager lips pressing her unsuspecting ones gently closed. For a moment, her mind went entirely blank, and she couldn't even be sure she was still breathing. Then she realized what was happening. Her eyes flew wide and she sucked in a shocked gasp, but didn't pull away. As surprised as she was, as caught off guard as she was, she was not displeased. In fact, her entire being was singing with joy. Recovering from her shock, she grinned against his lips and pressed her hands on either side of his face, pulling him closer.

The tiny static tingles that had been present between them since Ella had arrived were nothing compared to the electricity that passed between them now. Ella half expected the raindrops to start combusting into vapour as they fell onto her skin. The current that ran under her skin was a hundred times more invigorating than the cool rain that washed over her, and she shivered with delight.

Spock wrapped his deceptively powerful arms around her ribcage, squeezing her as tightly as he dared. As much as he wanted to be as close to her as possible, he knew his own strength, and his thoughts shied away from the prospect of hurting her. Even as the Vulcan half of him, trained to abhor displays of emotion, rebelled against his very public actions, his human half rejoiced at his decision to relent. She fit into his arms as though she had been made to fill that space. Her lips, cold compared to his, were cooled further by the raindrops sliding over them, but Spock didn't mind. Their differences were what made her so enchanting.

All of a sudden, Spock realized that it was not only his own elation that he was feeling. Tiny tendrils of foreign thought processes wound themselves into his consciousness, and after a moment of confusion, he realized that he was sharing in Ella's experience as well.

Ella's thoughts were whirling in her head like an ion storm. What did this mean? How could she leave now that this had happened?

The kiss changed rapidly from a chaste embrace to something more desperate as they realized their time was growing thin. Ella slipped her arms around Spock's neck and pulled herself even closer to him, pressing her drenched chest against his. This elicited a groan that she had never in a million years thought could come from his throat. It spoke of yearning and need and it made Ella's heart stutter. She began to see that now that he had relinquished control, all his walls were tumbling down. This was his true nature, what he really wanted, how he really reacted. Ella liked it.

Her time was almost up, and her heart gave a wrench as she thought about leaving. Although it was the last thing in the universe she wanted to do, Ella slowly extricated herself from the embrace.

"I – I have to go," she breathed. "I don't want to, but I have that internship at the University of Mississippi, and I really can't miss my shuttle, the next one's not for a week…"

Spock looked down at her, his dark eyes full of understanding and acceptance, but also plagued by sadness at their parting. "I will contact you. Your shuttle arrives on Earth in three days, yes?" Ella nodded, still unable to break eye contact with him. "I will contact you via subspace radio in three days, then." He paused. "This is not the end. At a risk of sounding like one of those black and white Earth films that you so appreciate, this is just the beginning for us. I do not doubt that in any way."

"Me neither," Ella said, a grin threatening to engulf her features. "Thank you. For everything."

"I will… miss you," Spock said with great difficulty, and it made Ella's heart melt. She couldn't help herself: she threw herself back into his arms for another brief kiss, a small indulgence that she frankly could not deny herself.

"I'll miss you too." Ella had more difficulty pulling away this time, but knew it had to be done. She backed away from him slowly, keeping her blue eyes fixed on his black ones.

Ella felt the warm energy of the transporter beam start to engulf her, and as she de-materialized, she had the chance to say just one more thing.

"Goodbye."

Spock stared at the rain-soaked patch of pavement where not two seconds ago Ella had stood. His instincts rebelled against her leaving; he wanted her to stay with him, for another day, another month, another year…_forever_. Looking up at the dark sky, he envisioned her, high above him, coming into being on the shuttle.

"Goodbye, Ella," he said to the sky, and proceeded to walk home with a spring in his step. He didn't notice the slender form that slipped away down an alley, armed with information that would prove disastrous.

Ella, on the other hand, was celebrating the past few minutes with vigour aboard the ship. As soon as she had re-materialized, she had begun a dance of ecstatic victory, right there on the transport platform. The transporter technician gave her a most quizzical look, then a smile stole over his features. Clearly this young woman was experiencing a profound moment of joy, and he did not intend to spoil it. So he let her have her dance. He hadn't seen someone that happy for a long time, perhaps ever. He politely turned to the other console to let her have a private moment of gleeful whinnying as he quietly informed the captain that the last of the passengers was aboard and they could begin the journey back to Earth.

His smile persisted the rest of the day.

* * * * *

T'Pring's thoughts were jumbled in her brain as she raced through the narrow alleyways of Shi'Kahr City in the rain. She couldn't focus her mind, and she what she had just witnessed pulsed in her mind's eye like a flare.

She had been on her way to see Spock, to apologize for her behaviour at the Academy the week before. Although she did not regret what she had said (it had been a logical reaction to that human's behaviour towards her intended mate), her parents had insisted that she apologize. After all, they said, it would not do to have one's fiancée fostering resentment. So, against her own judgement, T'Pring had set out for Spock's dwelling on the outskirts of the city. Upon reaching his district, the rain intensified, and she was forced to take shelter beneath the awning of a closed shop in a small plaza. Much to her surprise, a few minutes after she had taken refuge there, a couple had entered the square. She had not anticipated that anyone would be out walking in this unseasonal downpour, and the sight of the couple startled her. As did the realization of who exactly it was.

That girl's red hair was what first alerted T'Pring to her identity, and T'Pring felt an irrational flare of anger. As T'Pring had chastised herself for the emotion, she caught a glimpse of who that Ella girl was with, and any hope she had held out for control vanished. The face of her intended mate, gazing at that..._human_ with such fondness and blatant longing on his face made T'Pring feel physically ill. What was he thinking? Surely there must be something wrong with his brain chemistry, because otherwise there would be no way he would be looking at her that way. He was bonded to her, _T'Pring_, not that redheaded, rounded-eared bitch!

T'Pring stopped running and leaned against a wall, catching her breath and regaining her emotional control. Her control had been slippery at best lately; she could no longer feel the bond with Spock (not that it had been extraordinarily strong to begin with), and it made her anxious. She believed the reason to be his blooming friendship with the Earth woman. Something had to be done. T'Pring had no doubt that despite the fact that she was leaving for her planet, this would not dissipate into nothing, all because of the last thing she'd seen before she'd fled.

She'd watched as the girl said a chaste, awkward goodbye to him and walk to what T'Pring presumed to be her beam-out point, continuing to face away from Spock. Her face had fallen into an expression that T'Pring recognized as the prelude to tears, but because of the rain running down her face, T'Pring could not tell whether or not she was actually crying. Spock, meanwhile, still stood beneath the trees at the edge of the square with an unabashedly emotional expression on his handsome face. He had looked torn, eyes flicking between the girl and the street that led back to his home. Eyes filling with resolve, he'd stepped out into the square, hurrying to Ella's side. He'd placed a hand on her shoulder, and she'd spun around, startled, slipping on the standing water that had accumulated on the ground. She'd fallen against his chest, in a manner the T'Pring had thought looked incredibly unlikely. They'd exchanged some words that T'Pring could not make out, then, to T'Pring's shock and horror, Spock tilted Ella's face up and their lips met in what T'Pring recognized as what humans called a "kiss". It was an incredibly intimate gesture, even amongst humans, who touched with alarming regularity. They had engaged in this for several minutes, before finally breaking apart and speaking again, this time sharing tender glances as they spoke. They'd kissed again, briefly, and the girl had backed away slowly, eyes still fixed on Spock. She soon began to shimmer with the energy of a transporter beam, quickly fading into nothingness.

T'Pring had fled. Confused and angry, paying no heed to the need for control she sprinted towards the Academy, seeking her father. He would know what to do about this.

She made it to his office very quickly, having enough breath after her brief respite to make it without stopping. The whole story came out in a rush that was remarkably understandable, and when she was finished she could see a hint of anger on her father's face. The lack of emotional control that T'Pring so struggled with came from her father and the unusually violent (even for a Vulcan) emotions that ran in their family, and this instance was no exception. Serat rose at once from his desk, sweeping out of the room with T'Pring on his heels. As they walked, he explained to T'Pring what he would do to rectify the situation.

They ended up in an area of the city that T'Pring had never visited. They went into a low, nondescript building, and T'Pring's father headed straight to the first office inside the door and rapped on the door. Two bald men dressed in simple grey robes answered, and without asking seemed to know why T'Pring and her father were there. They beckoned to T'Pring and Serat, their black eyes unreadable and glittering, quietly shutting the door behind them.


	14. Chapter 14: Delete

A/N: So, sorry I forgot to post an authors note on the last chapter, I was just so stoked to post and it slipped my mind. I intended to apologize for its abnormal length, I just couldn't cut anything out... Apparently people didn't mind, though. Thank you all so much for the reviews, every new one I get literally makes me squeal with glee, so if you want to make my day then please review. This chapter is also a bit long, and all I have to say before you read is: don't kill me. Note: all the Vulcan terms and stuff that i use can be found at teh Vulcan Language dictionary website if you're interested.

* * *

Delete

Ella flopped onto her bed, filled with the bittersweet feeling of being home. After the three day ride on the cramped shuttle, where she got little to no sleep, actually having space to breathe was much appreciated. She had been cold her whole trip, and even though it was the end of July and the heat of summer in Iowa, she still felt vaguely chilled. Living on a desert planet for two months will do that to a girl.

There was a violent tap on her window, and she jumped, sitting up.

"Hey pretty lady!" came the voice of the grinning young man sitting on the oak branch outside her window. Clutching her chest as her heart hammered, she rose and went to the window, opening it to allow him entrance. Jim leapt in with the grace of a wood elf, springing over the ledge and flinging himself at her. They hugged fiercely for a moment, before they broke apart and he went and arranged himself in her plush armchair. He studied her, blonde head cocked to one side.

"You're _glowing_," he remarked. "What happened to you on Vulcan?"

"A tan happened; it's sort of inevitable when you live in a desert for two months," Ella retorted, folding herself into a cross-legged position on her bed.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," he said crossly.

"Well, there was this guy..." she said, looking at the ceiling coyly.

"Oh. My. God. Call the fire department, the military, a doctor, ANYONE! Eleanor Roxanne Jones has met a boy!"

"Shut up," she snapped half-heartedly.

"Sorry, I'm simply overwhelmed with shock," he said, barely containing his grin. "Did you meet him at the embassy, was he from Earth or one of the colonies, what did he look like?" His questions all came out in a jumble, but Ella knew him well enough to decipher what he'd said.

"No, I didn't meet him at the embassy, he is from neither and he had the loveliest dark eyes..."

"Well, if he's not from Earth or the colonies, where is he from?" Jim was quite plainly confused.

"He's from _Vulcan_, numbskull," she said, flopping onto her bed with a sigh. "And he's perfect."

"Hold up. You mean to tell me you've fallen for a Vulcan?!"

"And I've fallen hard," Ella said dreamily. "God, Jim, he's wonderful. Crack-smart, intensely caring - once you break through his shell, of course - brave, handsome..."

"I cannot wrap my head around this. Does... not... compute..."

"What's so strange about it? It's happened before." Ella became a bit indignant. "For instance, Commanders Tucker and T'Pol aboard the _Enterprise NX-01_: they were together, all historical evidence supports it. He was a human, she was a Vulcan. It worked… for a while."

"Ella, I didn't mean to say that it wouldn't. I was just surprised that a girl like you, so full of emotion, could go for a guy who keeps it all bottled in. I have no doubt that he's great. He'd have to be to be worthy of you."

"Thanks Jimmy." Ella relaxed.

"So when do I get to meet him?" Jim asked, gazing at Ella expectantly.

"I don't know. I'm hoping I might convince him to come visit, maybe during the break they get for their holiday about halfway through the school year. The seasons in Shi-Kahr are roughly the same as here, so it would be the equivalent of winter break for us. I can't remember what their holiday celebrates, though."

"Well, I'm going to have to approve before this goes any further." Jim puffed out his chest. "I have to make sure he's good for my girl before he gets her."

"Yes, Dad."

"Don't give me that lip, young lady, or it'll be a grounding for you," he said in a deep voice.

Ella looked at him, suddenly serious. "I don't know why you won't apply to Starfleet Academy. You could be a great captain."

"They would have to kick me out before the first week was out," Jim said, smiling ruefully. "I don't think any relationship I had with Starfleet would be a successful or fruitful one."

They'd had this conversation enough times that Ella knew it would be pointless to push any more. So she just shrugged.

"Fine, fine," she conceded. "But back to the original topic..."

"Yes. Tell me more about your pointy-eared stud."

Ella went into great detail about her "pointy-eared stud" although she wouldn't have used that term to describe him. She told Jim all about the sights they had seen together, the things they'd done and the things she'd learned from him. She told him about their near-death experience in the cave, and how he'd saved her life at least twice that day. She blushed as she told him about their farewell and the abrupt change in the nature of their relationship it had brought about. At this anecdote he grinned wolfishly.

"Ooh, got a little nooky with the Vulcan, hmm?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Ella laughed.

"It was just a little kissing," she said, turning crimson.

"I'll bet it was." She threw a pillow at him, which initiated a brief but fierce pillow fight. Erika, hearing the noise from downstairs, came up to Ella's room to greet her visitor. She knocked loudly to be heard over the giggles and thumps.

"Come in!"

"Hi Jimmy," Erika said as she entered, expertly ducking to avoid the throw pillow that came whizzing out at her. She knew to be on her guard when those two started flinging pillows. "I didn't hear you come in this time. Well done, you're getting better at this."

"Thanks Erika! I'm gonna make one hell of a cat burglar one day." He paused as though lost in thought. "Although why anyone would want to steal cats is beyond me."

Ella smacked him with a pillow, re-initiating the battle. They battled viciously for several more minutes until Ella finally ended the fight on a decisive note by pinning Jim to the floor.

"No fair, Ellie, you've spent the last two months in higher gravity," he whined.

"Jim, your mother called. She told me to tell you that if you aren't in the kitchen dressed for court in three minutes she is going to chop that oak down herself so that you can't visit Ella on a whim anymore," Erika said, still in the doorway. "And this time she sounded serious."

"Court?" Ella asked, wondering if Jim had finally gotten himself arrested for something.

"Frank won't sign the divorce papers, so Mom's taking him to court," Jim replied, already on his way to the window, having escaped from Ella when she was distracted. "Here's hoping the judge sees what we see, right?"

"Good luck, call me when you get home," Ella said, setting about picking up the pillows that were strewn about the room.

"Will do," Jim said, saluting and leaping out into the tree, scampering across to his bedroom window as fast as any spider monkey.

"I'm sorry, baby, I have to go too," Erika said apologetically, twisting the hem of her shirt. "We have a staff meeting at the school for all the elementary teachers, and I really can't miss it. I'll only be gone a few hours, I promise."

"It's okay, Mom, it'll be nice to have a bit of time to myself," Ella said, replacing the pillows on her bed. She was glad that the school had accepted her mother back after her long absence, reinstating her in her previous position as a third-grade teacher. They must have figured that homeschooling her daughter for thirteen years counted as her staying "in practice".

"Sure you'll be okay?" Erika pressed.

"Yeah, go, I'll be fine."

The moment Ella's mother was away from the house, the doorbell chimed.

Ella tromped downstairs, long skirt flowing around her legs as she headed for the front door. Reaching the foyer, she traipsed over to the door (her happy glow hadn't diminished in the least, despite her sleepiness, and it made her bounce on the balls of her feet instead of walking normally). It swung open to reveal two tall men standing on the doorstep, heads veiled with grey hoods.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Ella asked, gazing at them warily. It was awfully hot to be wearing cloaks.

One of them gently lifted their hood off. His bald pate gleamed dully in the morning sunlight.

"Eleanor Jones?" he queried in a monotone voice. Ella nodded. "May we come in?"

* * * * *

Approximately One Hour Later

"Eleanor, Eleanor, wherefore art thou Eleanor?"

Ella had been napping on her bed when a tap at the window and a singsong voice uttering the modified Shakespearean lines woke her. She turned to see Jim perched outside her window, wearing a white button down-shirt and sacks, smiling like a fool. She went to let him in.

"We won the case," Jim announced. "Bastard will be out of our lives forever."

"That's great, Jim! I'm definitely no sorry to see him go." Ella hugged her friend after he had clambered over the sill and into her room.

"So tell me more about your Vulcan," Jim said, sitting on Ella's bed and gazing at her expectantly.

"You mean my trip to Vulcan, right?"

"No, I mean the Vulcan boy you stayed with and supposedly got hot and heavy with or what ever. What was his name?"

"Jim, I don't know what you're talking about. I stayed in an all-girl dorm."

Vulcan, Three hours later

"What are they doing in there? They've been locked up with him for an hour!"

"Amanda, be patient. When those men request a meeting, one does not refuse them."

Sarek and Amanda were sitting on the sofa in the living area, waiting for the two men who'd shown up at their door an hour before to emerge from their meeting with Spock. Amanda was fiddling with the hem of her tunic, while Sarek sat still but in a stiffer stance than usual.

They heard a door close softly down the hall, and their heads whipped towards the noise in unison. Sarek stood, and Amanda followed, slipping her hand into her husband's. She didn't know anything about those men other than that they worked or the Vulcan government, but they gave her a bad feeling. Sarek had also informed her that they were _Kolinahr_ masters, although she could have told that just by looking at them. Their black eyes were too dead for them to be anything but.

"Our work is complete," one of the men said once they emerged into the living room. "Thank you for your time, Ambassador, Mrs. Sarek." They bowed gently and started for the door.

Amanda couldn't contain herself. "What did you do to our son?" she barked at them, pulling free from her husband and crossing her arms over her chest.

The taller of the two looked at his counterpart, who nodded.

"After much deliberation, and due to a great amount of compelling evidence, it was decided that we should perform the Fullara ritual on your son and his… human."

Sarek's eyes narrowed dangerously, and when he spoke, his voice undeniably held cold fury.

"What gives you cause to do this to my son?"

Amanda was lost.

"What is this 'Fullara' thing, Sarek?"

"It is an outdated, barbaric ritual that utilises a mindmeld to suppress the memory of an event or events, as well as the emotions that go along with it." Sarek looked more furious than Amanda had ever seen him, and that was saying something for her normally calm and composed husband. "Why did you do this to Spock, what gave you the _right_?"

"We received reliable information that your son was disrespectful of his bond to T'Pring, in a very disgraceful and public manner. It was decided that further interactions with the human female would be detrimental to both your son and your community."

"You erased Ella from his memory?" Amanda was horrified. What kind of person would do that? She'd known that they liked each other, and evidently they'd done something about it in a less than private capacity.

"Yes, and him from hers," the shorter of the two replied, matter of factly. "And as we did so, we discovered further cause to do what we did. It appears that your son and the human inadvertently melded several times. We were able to observe your son's reaction to meeting the human through her, and we found that he experienced _shon'ha'lock_. That in itself is-…"

"Excuse me," Amanda interrupted. "Forgive me, but are you saying that my son experienced Vulcan's version of love at first sight, and _you think it's a bad thing?_"

"Given the further information we uncovered, yes," the tall man continued. Amanda stared at him, barely breathing. What else could there be?

"Are you familiar with the term… _k'hat'n'dlawa_?" He uttered the word like a curse, spitting it off his tongue like he was disgusted to have it there. Of course, he would admit to no such feeling. After all, he was a _Kolinahr_ master.

"I am," Sarek said. "As is my wife."

Amanda dimly remembered asking her husband one day if Vulcans believed in soul mates. That word and its definition had been his answer.

"Then you know that a bond between two individuals can occur one of three ways: it can be induced through a ceremony orchestrated by the family, like the one your son participated in; it can develop over time, as it did with you and your wife, or so I'm told. The last option is really founded in myth and has very little evidence to support its existence. According to some, a bond can be innate, subconscious and permanent from the moment both halves of the bond are in existence. In pre-Enlightenment times, this type of bond was the true definition of _k'hat'n'dlawa_: two people who are literally half of one another. Supposedly over time the meaning was altered to mean a deep… emotional connection." He looked as though speaking of such things made him vaguely nauseous. "We discovered in both of their minds evidence of such a bond."

"It was very distasteful to experience," added the shorter man.

"It is very possible that your son's… unique heritage was the only thing that enabled him to be involved in such a bond, given the last time one was recorded was before the Enlightenment and our ascension into the logical society we are a part of today," the tall man continued, ignoring his counterpart's comment. "The part that does not make sense is why it would occur with a full-blooded human."

"I couldn't care less if it had happened with a Klingon!" Amanda exclaimed. "You're telling me that our only son found his goddamn _soul-mate_ and you took that away from him??"

"In human terms, your statement is correct. It was improper for him to be involved with anyone other than his Vulcan bondmate."

"What if T'Pring doesn't make him happy? He was happier when he was with Ella than I've ever seen him!" Amanda was livid. Who were they to dictate her son's love life?

"Then it is beneficial for him to be away from her. We have emptied their minds of each other, replacing their memories with alternate versions of the two months they spent together. Spock now believes that he spent a great deal of time in his room this summer, while the human is under the impression that she spent her two months here in a dorm with twelve other human exchange students."

"Wait- you did this to Ella too?" confirmed Amanda, disgusted.

"It was the only way to ensure that she would not trigger recall in your son. Recall can occur, should both parties experience the same trigger at the same time. For that reason, we respectfully request that you keep your son away from Earth."

"Whatever you like, just please leave now," Amanda said, gesturing towards the door without looking at the two men. She couldn't stand to look at the two men who had taken away her son's burgeoning happiness.

The door closed quietly behind them, and Amanda looked at her husband with tears in her eyes. He opened his arms to her and she fell into his embrace, soft sobs shaking her slim frame.

"Mother, are you ill?" came a voice from the hallway, and Amanda turned to see Spock looking at her with concern in his eyes. She wiped at the tears.

"I'm fine, Spock," she said. A thought struck her, and she pulled away from Sarek, resolve hardening as hope filled her. All was not lost.

"Spock, we never really gave enough thought to Starfleet. How do you feel about sending in an application?"

* * *

Okay, okay, if I find a mob outside my door with torches and pitchforks, I know it'll be warranted. But please make it quick. Or better yet, wait until after the next chapter to kill me! I'm sure it'll make you want to! Here's a hint: a new old character gets introduced!! Cheers, and again, i value my life. Don't end it. (Keyrani and nagrom-eimaj, I'm talking to you!)


	15. Chapter 15: Sorry

A/N: So, obviously enough I'm still alive, thank you all for not killing me. In response to many review hoping for a Nero re-occurence, I will tell you this: it's not out of the question, but he sure as hell ain't in this chapter. Essentially the title of this chapter says it all. I will probs recieve some assassination attempts after this chapter. For all those who are hoping for a quick resolution to the problem that arose last chapter, read on and find out!

* * *

Sorry (One Month Later)

The warm, humid wind ruffled Ella's curls and she looked up at the field of stars above her. Her hand was entwined within another, this one large, calloused and slightly cool to the touch. Despite their size, she had seen how gentle and precise those hands could be, especially when dealing with a patient.

Leo (as she insisted on calling him because his full name sounded like that of an old man) playfully caught the hem of her polka-dotted dress with his other hand and tugged it. She giggled, squeezing his hand.

"Where are we going?" she asked him for the third time. "Are you going to tell me, or is this really just a kidnap attempt?"

"You won't know 'till we get there," he said, throwing her a sly look. "It's a surprise."

Ella shook her head, frustrated and excited at the same time. Even though their relationship had progressed extremely fast, Ella felt that she and the young med student from Georgia had made a connection. He had voiced the same opinion that night at the mixer for all the people involved in the month-long internship programs, validating her feelings and making her unbelievably elated. He had been in the program for students with an undergraduate degree, but because of Ella's scores on all her placement tests, she'd been put into many of the higher level programs, particularly the ones concerning xenobiology. They'd formed an instant friendship, and when he'd asked her out to dinner she'd said yes without hesitation. Despite their rather unorthodox age difference (she was eighteen and he was twenty-four), her maturity level was far beyond that of many other girls her age, and people were more or less accepting. It didn't hurt that he was a proper Southern gentleman to the core, and treated her like a goddess.

Leonard McCoy looked over at the young woman walking beside him and felt a surge of affection for her. The chemistry and compatibility was undeniable, and she was _so_ goddamn beautiful. And so smart! If her intellect had legs, it could happily run circles around his, and he was no mental couch potato. She cursed like a sailor, but it was endearing coming from such a lovely and otherwise rather feminine individual. Despite her femininity, she was no pixie, however; lusciously curvy and deceptively strong, she could hold her own in an arm-wrestling match with any man who cared to try. He even liked that hint of melancholy that lingered around her like a perfume. There was a sense about her that something had occurred to make her sad, but that she didn't admit to or acknowledge. It made her stronger in his eyes, and added an aura of mystery. At the same time, it made Leonard want to protect her, or at least alleviate some of her sadness. An impulse he knew she would hate, as she despised being treated like "some goddamn china doll". So he did his best to curb that instinct, settling for holding doors open for her and similar small gestures that made her life easier.

"Are we almost there?" Ella asked as the woods began to thin and a field became visible though the swaying trunks.

"Yep," he responded. "But you have to close your eyes. It won't be the same if you don't."

"But I'll trip, you know that! I'm as graceful as a rhinoceros!"

Leonard privately disagreed, but conceded that she maybe wasn't the most coordinated individual around, especially with her eyes closed on an uneven path. Once her eyelids had fluttered shut, he solved the problem by scooping her up into his arms. She protested loudly, but did not open her eyes. He took this as encouragement and proceeded into the clearing towards the spot he had prepared earlier in the day. He'd had the whole evening planned out: they would go to the banquet/dance that the University put on as a farewell to the internship members, then for a walk to this spot for a bit of time alone before she left two days later. He'd known that her aunt, who she'd been staying with while studying, would want to spend the next few days with her, and while he didn't want to interrupt their family time, he wanted to be alone with her one last time. Thus the walk to the secluded clearing.

He carried her to the center of the field, where he'd set up a blanket and heater. September was creeping up on them, and the nights had begun to get chilly. Setting her down gently and telling her to keep her eyes closed, he reached over and plugged in the strings of lights that he'd set up around the clearing and connected to the nuclear battery of the heater. The trees began to twinkle with little white lights, and several strands were draped over the long grass that rose around the blanket.

"You can open them now."

Ella cautiously opened her eyes, and her mouth dropped open in shock. She looked at Leonard, and her lovely blue eyes were wide.

"This is... amazing! What brought this on?" she asked, still gazing at the lights around her.

"Well, I thought because you were leavin'..."

Her expression turned cold all of a sudden and she backed away from him.

"What is it you thought, Leonard? That because I was leaving you would _get some_ if you strung up a few pretty lights?" He noticed that she had used his full name in her anger, instead of the abbreviated version she was so fond of.

"No! God, no, that's not what I... I mean, I didn't think..." He floundered, caught off guard by her abrupt accusation. "I just wanted to spend some time with you, alone, before you go. That's all, I promise you!" This was not entirely true. Like any guy in a relationship, he'd imagined the many possible outcomes of being entirely alone with the object of his affection, in a secluded clearing. However, he prided himself on his integrity, especially around women (_especially_ around women like Ella), and never intended for anything more than maybe some kissing to occur.

Ella relaxed, and scooted closer to him. "Sorry. I didn't think that's what you really meant, it's just that everyone has been harping at me to 'be careful' and 'take it slow' with you. They think you're only after one thing. I guess I've just been hearing it so much that it's become ingrained."

Leonard sighed. He'd known that this would happen, especially with Ella's very protective aunt. Their age difference did make some people suspicious, but once they had a few conversations with him they often realized that he was interested in all of Ella, not just how much she could put out. Her aunt, however, was an eternally suspicious woman, and hadn't warmed up to him. Ella hadn't cared a whit, and went out with him anyway.

"If you're uncomfortable, we could go..." he suggested, hoping she would say no.

"No, no, I don't want to go," she assured him, pressing against him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and they lay back on the blanket. They talked quietly for a while, staring at the stars. Ella spoke of her anxiety about going to the Academy in less than a week, her fear that she would be entirely outclassed by her fellow students. Leonard spoke unabashedly about his intense fear of space, and the ridicule it often earned him. Ella reassured him that although their society was rather fixated on space travel, it was still entirely possible and even common to live one's life on one planet. After a while they simply ceased to speak and just lay quietly in one another's arms. Their lips met, a familiar act in unfamiliar settings. They'd never had the chance to be this close before without worrying about being walked in on, by anyone from Leonard's roommate to Ella's aunt. Without any fear to hinder them, their kisses soon turned fevered. That combined with the warmth from the heater prompted clothing to be shed, and soon he had his shirt off and her cardigan was draped over the nearest patch of grass. Her skirt slipped upwards as they rolled together, but instead of pushing it down modestly, she took his hand and placed it on her thigh.

Shock was in his eyes as they flicked up to meet hers.

"W-what're you doin'?" he asked, voice quavering. Her leg was _very_ smooth and warm. "Are you sure you wanna be goin' there?"

"If it was anybody else, no," she replied, placing a hand on his chest. "But it's you. I want you."

Leonard McCoy was many things, but he wasn't a man who needed to be told things twice. Capturing her lips with his, he laid her back on the blanket and slowly slid her dress upwards. When they first slipped together in the oldest, most elemental act, she had a brief flash of pain, nothing she couldn't handle, which quelled to a dull ache then disappeared altogether. She knew she would hurt later, though.

Ella wished she'd had the courage to tell him he was her first. As they coupled sweetly, caringly beneath the wide summer sky, she understood things she hadn't before. Like what a good man he was, how kind and intelligent, and like how lucky she was to have found him. Yet despite all this, all the wonderful things that he was, there was something missing. She couldn't identify it, couldn't even begin to think of what could possibly be missing, but deep inside her was a hole that remained empty. As they moved together, she stared up at the stars, and felt very far away from herself. Her eyes remained glued to one twinkling point of light, and without consciously identifying it, she knew if she looked away from it she may cry. One half of her was content and overjoyed to be with him, knowing that she could and probably would fall in love with if she stayed with him much longer. But the other half of her was shying away, protesting this intrusion, insisting that this was wrong and he wasn't the one. She pushed these feelings away. It was just cold feet. Every girl's got to feel this way her first time, right? Like they were giving it up to the wrong person, like they should have saved it for someone else?

Afterwards, as she lay ensconced in his warm embrace, she clenched her jaw to keep from crying. She felt empty, emptier than she had when they were actually together. Pretending to sleep, she allowed her breathing to become deep and even, and relaxed her limbs where they had been tense before. She could tell that he still lay awake, and he confirmed this when he spoke softly to what he assumed to be her sleeping form.

"Ella, are you awake?" She didn't answer, struggling to keep her breathing the same. "I- I think I may be fallin' for you. I'm real sorry I couldn't have told you at a better time."

Her chest tensed up, and her carefully crafted illusion faltered for a moment. He sucked in a breath, not moving. She recovered, shifted a bit and went back to "sleep". He relaxed, wrapping an arm tighter around her and settling into sleep. He soon slept, snoring softly. Making her decision, she slipped out of his arms and dressed as quietly as she could. Pulling a page of paper from the old-fashioned day-timer in her bag, she scrawled a note and placed it on the blanket beside him.

_So sorry. Don't follow, it'll be easier this way. Ella._

Placing a kiss on his cheek and tugging on her ballet flats, she stole away across the misty field towards the path back to civilization, tears finally spilling down her cheeks.

* * *

My apologies.


	16. Chapter 16: Whiskey

A/N: Okay, so this chapter is a bit shorter, so sorry. Also, was astounded at the number of people who reviewed with their opinions on the last few chapters, I didn't know you cared so much!! Thank you all!! And don't worry, Spock will be back in the picture very soon. How does everyone feel about a skip forward of a few years? Was contemplating doing her Academy years, but have decided that the continuation of her relationship with Spock needs to occur when they're both older. Everyone okay with that? After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder... Final disclaimer for this chapter, I'm not trying to condone underage drinking here: I have no opinion either way, it just fit with the story. Cheers, and happy reading!

* * *

Whiskey

The curtains were drawn in Ella's room the day she got back from Mississippi, and the window was locked when Jim tried to open it. She never locked her window.

So for the first time in many years, Jim had to go the long way to get into the house. Erika saw him coming up the walk and opened the door, brows furrowed with worry.

"She arrived at six o'clock this morning, said hello and went straight up to her room. I haven't heard from her since. I listened at the door a few times; she's been listening to 'Georgia On My Mind' for hours on repeat, and I have no clue why." Erika looked lost and bewildered.

"I'll go bug her," Jim said, starting up the stairs. Her last communication, about a week before, gave him a sneaking suspicion as to why she had chosen that song.

"Just make sure she's still, you know, alive," Erika called as he reached the landing.

"Will do." Jim pressed his ear to Ella's bedroom door and sure enough, there was Ray, crooning about moonlight through the pines. He knocked softly, and received what he thought sounded like an affirmative grunt from behind the door. Opening the door, stuffy air rushed out at him from the dark room, and he stepped inside.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimly lit space, and he stopped just inside the door to get his bearings. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, they picked up an Ella-shaped shadow curled in the armchair by the window, facing away from the door. She had something in her hand, and as he watched, she lifted it to her lips, and the diffused light that had snuck in through the curtains showed an amber liquid sloshing in a clear bottle.

"Told you, Mom, not hungry," she said quietly. Her voice was an uncharacteristic monotone, and the only other time he'd heard her speak that way was the day he'd come back from the victorious court battle to find that she'd forgotten all the true details of her trip to Vulcan, including the boy she'd met there. He was still baffled over her sudden change of story, but her account of staying in a dorm and visiting all the "culturally significant locations" around Shi'Kahr City with twelve other girls never quite rang true with him. Especially since she'd been talking for months about how she'd been the one chosen to stay with the family of an esteemed ambassador. He had tried for hours to convince her that she was off her rocker, accusing her of playing an elaborate practical joke, even going so far as to recount the whole story she'd told him that morning about the boy and all the things they'd done together, but nothing had made her change her story. It had just made her more confused.

"I'm not Mom," he said, walking over to stand in front of her. She looked up at him and defiantly took another swig from the bottle. He wrested it from her grip and looked at the label.

"Ella, you don't drink!" he exclaimed, gesturing with the three-quarters full whiskey bottle. "Where the hell did you get a bottle of whiskey?"

"Dunno." Ella, usually so eloquent, (putting aside her habit of using colourful language) seemed to have lost the will to come up with a complete sentence.

"How can you not know?" he said, setting the bottle out of her reach. A thought struck him. "You don't know, or you can't remember?"

"Either. Both. Dunno," Ella replied with her eyes fixed on her knees.

"What happened in Mississippi, Ellie?" he asked softly. "Was it that guy from Georgia you told me about?" She nodded. "What did he do?"

"He din't do 'nything," she slurred. "I lef' him. He was too nice. Woulda stayed. Wanted to go to _space_. He din't. Hadta go. God, I feel like shit, Jimmy."

"Share the chair?" Jim asked, and Ella obliged, making room for him on the oversized chair. He sat; it was certainly more difficult now than when they were younger. Ella leaned on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. He didn't really need to say anything.

"S'not jus' him, though, Jimmy!" she exclaimed, and sniffled. It seemed she was fighting tears. He tightened his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. "I jus'... ever since I go' back from Vulcan, I've felt... yucky, y'know? Like I lef' somethin' there. An' I miss it. More than I miss _him._" She paused to sniffle. Jim passed her a tissue. "Y'know, I'd conviced m'self that he was th' one. We _did it_" she added conspiratorially. "An' I thought it woul' be perfec' but it wasn't. I mean, he was nice an' all. More than nice. He was perfec'. I shoulda been overjoyed, alla me. But a big chunk of me was empty. No emotion, nothin'. When we were... y'know... I felt like I was makin' an awful mistake. Like I had wasted my firs' time on the wrong person. And y'don't get that firs' time back."

"Ella, you're not the type of girl to give it up to just anyone," Jim assured her. "If you thought it was the right time and person, he had to have been pretty special. And from what you've told me, he seems like the kind of guy who'd appreciate what an enormous gift he'd been given."

"Din't tell him," Ella responded.

"Why the hell not?"

"Dunno." That seemed to be her go-to answer. They sat in silence for a while, then-

"I vomited in your lap."

"So you did." Jim thought his lap had felt a little warmer than usual. "That's okay. I've vomited on you enough times. When you're ready to get up, we can go to the bathroom and get cleaned up, okay? Are you going to be sick again?"

"Yep," she said, stood and staggered into the ensuite. Jim followed her, uncomfortable in his newly altered pants. Reaching the bathroom, he pulled off his jeans (thankfully his boxer shorts had been spared the dousing his pants had suffered) and threw them into the shower, giving them a quick rinse. Ella was busy becoming intimately acquainted with the inside of the toilet bowl. Jim grabbed the glass from beside the sink and filled with cool water, offering it to Ella between bouts of sickness. She gratefully took it, swishing it around her mouth to get rid of the aftertaste that the whiskey and bile had left. He also wet a facecloth and pressed it to the back of her neck. She shot him a grateful look before doubling over and retching once more. He patted her back and prepared to wait it out.

"Just think, Ellie" he said in an attempt to distract her. "In two days you leave for the Academy. It'll be as amazing as you've always dreamed, and you'll make tons of friends, and you'll forget all about everything else."

"Won't forget you, Jimmy, if tha's what you're worried abou'," she said, lifting her head and passing a hand over her mouth. He neither agreed with nor denied this claim aloud, but in truth that was what he feared. "You're like my brother, Jim. No matter how many friends I make, there'll be no danger of you being forgotten." He noted with pleasure that she seemed more lucid now. At least she had mostly stopped slurring.

"That means a lot, Ellie."

"It better," she said, and groaned. "God, now I remember why it is I don't drink. I'm never doing it again."

"Good plan," Jim said with a half-smile. "Or at least stick to the milder stuff next time, okay?"

"Nope, no more alcohol for me, EVER. Seeing you the morning after grad should have tipped me off as to why it was that booze never touched my lips, but I guess I just wasn't thinking. The prospect of forgetting was awfully attractive."

"Forgetting isn't as great as it's cracked up to be," Jim said, thinking of the guy she'd told him about with the amazing dark eyes and elegantly pointed ears. She'd _glowed_. He sighed. What he wouldn't give to see her glow that way again.

Jim had seriously considered going to Vulcan to find that guy for her, bring him here and _make_ her remember. However, she never had told him his name, and even _if_ Jim could find him, and _if_ the Vulcan agreed to come, there was no guarantee that Ella would remember. Jim didn't even know what it was that had made her forget, let alone put a slew of alternate memories in her head. Maybe it was just him, wanting to believe his friend had fallen in love while on Vulcan. He wanted the best for her, no doubt about that, and the way she'd talked about that Vulcan... He'd never seen anyone more hopeful, ecstatic... or in love. In two months, Ella had managed to find what Jim had been looking for for eighteen years, what most people searched for all their lives. It made him angry to think that something – or someone – had taken that away from her. Ella might not have known it, but however great that guy from Georgia was, however gentlemanly, kind and intelligent, he was just the consolation prize. Which was too bad, because he sounded like a decent guy.

"No, Ellie," he said, rubbing her back as she huddled on the tile floor, waiting to be sick again. "Forgetting is definitely no good. Trust me."

* * *

Again, am thinking of a skip, everyone okay with that?


	17. Chapter 17: Embers

A/N: So I defs wrote this one in record time, I was so stoked to have them meet up again! However, there isn't tooo much Spocky in this chapter, lots next chapter though... God, I love him... So logical and smart and stuff. *sighs* Sorry, let's get this show on the road!

* * *

**Part Two: Night and Day**

Eight Years Later

2258: Embers

Ella's gleaming boots rang on the deck surface as she stalked through Deep Space 5 on her way to see the Admiral in charge. Her long hair was tied back in a tight braided bun at the base of her neck, her pants were pressed and her tunic was impeccable. She'd made it clear from her first day at the Academy that the normal regulation skirt would not work for her. She'd taken one look at the micro-skirted dress, told her commanding officer that that "there was no way in hell she was wearing that, Sir", and went to search for an alternative. Upon discovering the little-known option for women to wear a variation of the men's uniform, she jumped on it, despite all the strange looks she got from her classmates. She found it easy to ignore them: see if they were the ones laughing when they can't fight properly on an away mission because they were worried about flashing their opponent.

Ella had been on away missions where fighting was involved, and they had made her eternally grateful for the decision to wear pants.

She reached the door to the Admiral's office and pressed the intercom.

"Come in," came the bright, smooth voice of Admiral Moore. Ella complied, opening the door and striding into the office.

"Commander Jones, reporting-..." she began, snapping to attention, but the Admiral cut her off.

"Don't bother with all that, you've been here for almost a month. I only get people to do that the first time. At ease," said the blond Admiral when Ella stayed at attention. Admiral Angela Moore was the furthest thing from the traditional image of an Admiral; standing about chest level to most of her colleagues, with platinum blonde hair and twinkling hazel eyes, she reminded people more of a trophy wife than a military commander. Perhaps the stereotyping she'd been subjected to had instilled a need to prove herself, perhaps her tiny frame just hid a warriors soul. Whatever the reason, the fifty-year-old woman looked barely more than thirty, and had retained a remarkably sunny disposition through all the trials that had led her to her admiralty.

"Is there any particular reason you've called me here today, Admiral?" she asked without preamble. Four years at the Academy and four years on a deep space mission had taught Ella the benefits of curtness. She still knew how to have a conversation, but she had lost any tendency to beat around the bush.

"I understand you've been slated to take three months shore leave on Earth, is that correct?" asked the Admiral, tapping at her computer screen.

"That's correct. I'm supposed to be on a transport back to Earth within a week or so," Ella responded. She was glad to be going home: she missed her Mom, and Jim, who she hadn't seen for over four years. Plus, a bit of time to process all that had happened during her four years on the USS _Perseus_ would be much appreciated. Granted, the weeks she'd spent with a Starfleet counsellor on Deep Space 5 had helped with the nightmares, but some relaxation would do her a world of good.

"I'm afraid that may have to be postponed," the Admiral said. "Someone has requested that you serve on another mission, departing tomorrow." Deep Space 5 was right on the edge of Federation space, and ships often passed by it on their way past the borders. It had been the _Perseus'_ safe haven after the fiasco on that planet a few light years outside the borders.

Ella was shocked. They'd told her she'd have a break, that she needed it, deserved it! God knows she could use it...

"With all due respect, Admiral, I was under the impression that my physicians and my counsellor recommended that I take at least a month's shore leave."

"This has been duly noted. However, the captain of the _Enterprise_ requested you personally. If it had been any other ship I would have turned it down for you myself. I am aware of your situation, Commander; I know what it was you experienced on that mission, and I respect your need for rest. After all, those stripes on your arms weren't earned by staying safe on the ship..." Ella rubbed at the still relatively new gold stripes around her wrists self-consciously. In her mind, they were not deserved: she had just been doing her duty on that planet, nothing more. "But I also know how much you wanted to serve on the _Enterprise_ when you graduated," the Admiral continued. "It said in your file that it was your top preference, and the only reason you didn't get a posting was because she wasn't quite up and running yet because of delays in production. Pike himself said that he would jump at a chance to have you on his crew. You know the Admiral personally, I take it?

"Yes, ma'am, I met him in my youth and he was one of my mentors at the Academy," Ella said. Then she considered what Admiral Moore had said. "Did you say 'Admiral', ma'am?"

"Oh, I'd forgotten that you've been away," she said, shaking her head slightly. "It's hard to find anyone who isn't aware of the events last year."

Ella had heard vague references to "the Narada incident", but she had no clue what they were talking about. Most of her time had been spent in her quarters or in sickbay, either working in the lab, analysing the viral samples she hadn't given the proper time to while on the mission, or working with her counsellor to complete her full mission briefing.

"Admiral, if you don't mind, could you please summarize what it was that occurred last year? No-one seems able to tell me, or they don't wish to."

The Admiral told her. Ella's chest felt like it had caved in when she was told that Vulcan had been destroyed, though she could not quite tell why exactly. She didn't know anyone on Vulcan, after all. All the loss of life sickened her, though.

"Ma'am, begging your pardon, but did you say that it was a Romulan that attacked Vulcan?" Ella asked. She had a sneaking suspicion, and a curious sense of dread pertaining to the Admiral's answer overcame her.

"Yes, a Romulan that had separated from the Empire. We're glad he was, otherwise we'd most likely be in the middle of a full-scale war right now. No, he stood apart. He called himself Nero."

_Oh no..._

"And is the perpetrator now in custody then?" she asked, hoping that perhaps her old friend might have survived his crazy attack, despite what he had done.

"No," the Admiral said, a righteous gleam in her eyes. "He was killed when his ship was destroyed by the _Enterprise_ and her crew." Ella's stomach clenched. He was dead then. "The full details are highly classified, of course, but everyone knows that it was the _Enterprise_, her captain and her crew that saved us."

"Captain Pike?"

"No. Although Admiral Pike was technically in command during the mission, he was taken hostage by Nero in order to obtain the subspace frequencies of Starfleet's border protection grids. Command of the _Enterprise_ was shared by her Acting Captain and First Officer. After the crisis was over, Pike was promoted to Admiral, and _Enterprise_'s current Captain assumed his position."

"Would I be familiar with his name, ma'am?" Ella queried, hoping for some insight into who the hero of Starfleet might be. Maybe she'd met him or her.

"Actually," the Admiral began with a twinkle in her eye, "he asked me not to say."

"I beg your pardon?"

"It seems that the Captain is a personal acquaintance of yours and wants his identity to remain a 'surprise'. However, I assure you, he is a very charming and intelligent young man. I imagine the two of you will get on famously, if you don't already."

Ella opened and closed her mouth, about to protest, then thought better of it. She'd find out tomorrow anyway.

"I imagine you'll want to pack, Commander. You're dismissed," the Admiral said, returning her gaze to her computer screen. Ella left, and started back towards her quarters. She only had a few personal things to pack, but she wanted to make sure that all her virus samples were properly taken care of and stored. That would take her all afternoon, then she could help the CMO with the evening physicals, if she had time. Most people wouldn't take on extra work after completing the assigned tasks, but Ella _loved_ her job. She loved working with people to cure their ills, she loved improving the quality of people's lives and she loved the atmosphere that a sickbay had. At the Academy, she'd spent all her time either studying or doing practical hours in the hospital wing of the Academy. Her social butterfly of a roommate had thought she was crazy, staying in almost every night with her nose buried in a textbook.

The truth was, Ella would rather spend her time in the company of formulas and definitions than her fellow cadets. On the rare occasion that her roommate managed to get her out of the dorm and into a club, she'd stuck to the fringes of the crowd, swaying awkwardly. Ella knew how to dance properly, but dancing usually wasn't an apt description for the activities that were pursued in the clubs around campus. _More like clothed intercourse_, Ella had often mused, shaking her head at the inept gyrations of her classmates.

Her roommate, Charlotte (or Charlie, as she adamantly preferred) O'Houlihan, a petite Irish girl with dark brown hair, twinkling blue eyes and legs up to there, was an entirely different story. Ella often had to shoo boys away from her unfairly charismatic and bubbly friend. The worst day of Ella's life was when she invited Charlie home for the summer and introduced her to Jim. Being of similar disposition, they immediately descended into something that Ella would describe as both a blood feud and a chemical explosion. They liked each other and Ella knew it, but whatever advances Jim put forth were swiftly and ruthlessly shut down. Ella was under the impression that Charlie was the only girl who had ever said "no" to Jimmy Kirk. Aside from Ella herself, that is. It drove him crazy, and he still asked about "that bitch. Yes, I mean Charlie!" whenever he and Ella spoke. Ella was convinced that they'd make the best married couple ever, but wisely kept this opinion to herself, given Charlie was immovable on her statement that she loathed James Tiberius Kirk. They'd figure it out eventually.

Thinking of Charlie made Ella miss her friend. Despite their very dissimilar personalities, they'd got on very well. Last Ella had heard, Charlie was posted on the _Farragut_, but that may have changed while she had been away.

She'd put in an inquiry when she arrived on the _Enterprise_ tomorrow. The prospect of finally serving aboard her dream vessel filled her with joy, despite her postponed vacation. On her brief visits to Riverside during the years before her mission on the _Perseus_, she'd been lucky enough to see the skeleton of the grand lady herself, the brand-spanking new vessel that bore the name _Enterprise_, being 'd grown up on stories of Captain Archer and the crew of the _NX-01_, and was still enthralled whenever someone mentioned any of their missions. To serve on a ship of the same name was Ella's dearest dream. It didn't hurt that Starfleet's flagship usually bore that name.

She couldn't wait for tomorrow to come.

* * * * *

As soon as she re-materialized on the _Enterprise_'s transporter platform the next morning, she knew it would be a good day. The space was bright and immaculate, and a grinning Lieutenant greeted her. He was very handsome, with Asiatic features and a friendly face, and Ella felt immediately at ease.

"Welcome aboard the _Enterprise_, ma'am. I'm Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu," he said, saluting her.

"At ease, Lieutenant, I only just got here. To be honest, I feel like I should be saluting you." She gestured at her stripes. "These are still pretty new."

"Permission to speak freely?" Ella nodded as she stepped down from the platform. "I thought you looked awfully young to be sporting that sort of bling on you wrists."

"I **am** too young," she replied with a half-smile. "Now, if you wouldn't mind directing me to the sickbay, I'd like to-..."

"Oh, no," Sulu said, steering her out of the transporter room and into a long hallway. "The Captain wanted me to escort you straight to the bridge. Your things were beamed straight to your quarters, yes?" Ella nodded. "Good. The Captain wanted to come meet you himself, but he got caught up with border control, and he honestly couldn't walk away from a communication like that."

"And I wouldn't expect him to," Ella said. "Honestly, I don't want to disturb the bridge, I can just go straight to sickbay."

"He'd get pretty mad if I let you do that," Sulu said as they turned a corner and the door to the bridge sighed open in front of them. "He's been looking forward to this for months."

"He ha-.." Ella began, but stopped when she saw the grinning figure standing by the Captain's chair. He had gotten braids on his wrists, a gold tunic and a haircut, but there was no mistaking that face.

"JIM!"

"Hey, Ella!" he managed to huff out before she threw herself into his arms, nearly squeezing the life out of him. "Nice to see you missed me," he wheezed.

She finally let go.

"You're the goddamn CAPTAIN of the _ENTERPRISE?_" she bellowed, demonstrating her famously loud lungs. Charlie often said that if Ella bellowed, it could be heard at the other end of campus. Then she decided to test it, and it worked. Ella didn't talk to her for a week. "Why didn't you TELL me?"

"Wanted it to be a surprise. Still a potty-mouth, I take it?" Jim said, gazing fondly at his friend. "No worries, it means you'll get along with my CMO."

Ella then remembered that although it was Jim she was talking to, technically, he was Captain Kirk. She was mortified at her lack of etiquette. Snapping to attention, she pulled her eyes away from her friend and stared straight ahead.

"Commander Eleanor Jones, reporting for duty, sir!" she barked.

Jim just looked at her. "You actually need me to say it?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest. Ella nodded sharply. "Fine, but just this once. At ease." Ella relaxed. "Are you done with all that now? Because to be honest, the only person who actually fully follows protocol around here is my First Officer. You can be all proper around him if you like, but other than that, we're pretty lax about the 'sirs' and 'ma'ams'. Besides, you've been calling me Jim for years, no reason for you to stop now."

He proceeded to introduce her to the rest of his bridge crew. After the last name, he looked around, seeming puzzled.

"Dammit, where the hell did he go?" Jim muttered, glaring at the door to the turbolift. "He's always disappearing."

"Who?" Ella asked.

"My-..." Jim started to say, but was interrupted when the doors hissed open to reveal a tall Vulcan man with his hands clasped behind his back. Ella recognized him: they'd been in a few classes together at the Academy, and they had graduated the same year. She'd always had a bit of a crush on him, although she would have died before telling Charlie or Jim. It was something about his eyes... But something had held her back. It was like her mind wanted to know him, but something in her wanted to push away from him. The feeling was strange, but she had listened to it. She hadn't exchanged a single sentence with him at the Academy directly, although they often argued during class debates. He was wicked smart (big surprise, he's a Vulcan!) and opinionated, and Ella had enjoyed their verbal contests. The interaction did not, however, continue outside the classroom.

"Finally," Jim grumbled. He led Ella over to the turbo lift. "Ella this is my First Officer, Spock. Spock, this is Eleanor, the friend I told you about."

"Jim, you have been discussing Commander Jones incessantly for approximately one month, three days, seven hours and forty-two minutes. I am familiar with her."

"Be nice!" Jim hissed at him.

"Live long and prosper, Commander," Ella said, automatically splitting her fingers into the salute. For a moment he looked as though he was about to respond in kind, but instead he looked down at his hand, seeming puzzled. Then he extended the hand, as though to grasp hers in a handshake.

Ella was flooded with a strange and powerful sense of déjà-vu. Nevertheless, she reached out and grasped his hand.

All hell broke loose.


	18. Chapter 18: One

A/N: Yay new chapter!! Thanks to all who reviewed, you make my day!! And to those who are loving the story (which, granted, is inevitable because it's freakin' awesome) and don't review, DO IT!! You know you want to... Anyway, here it is.

* * *

One

The moment their skin met, a psychic shockwave punched through the air on the bridge, and everyone clutched at their skulls. Many people fell to the ground, their ears ringing, and Spock and Ella looked at each other, alarmed. Ella looked at their clasped hands and the déjà-vu was back, this time with strange, vague memories attached to it, like something out of a dream...

..._he brushed the hair off her brow, and his cheeks flushed emerald with mortification..._

_...she was trying not to cry as the transporter beam ripped her away..._

_...his lips were the hottest part of him yet..._

_... "We have created a safety net for the modifications that you will undergo. Should you have any physical contact whatsoever, the normal psychic energy that exists between you will be forced outwards, crippling the individuals around you temporarily, then return to your minds with more force, resulting in immediate..."_

Ella's brain felt like it was exploding, and she dropped to the floor with a painful crunch, unconscious.

Spock managed to hold onto consciousness a few nanoseconds longer. He had shared the same strange, disjointed memories as her, though he didn't know it, and deduced that the last bit of recalled dialogue applied to the current state of events. He did not know who it was who had spoken, but he felt an irrational flare of dislike upon hearing the words. Then as he watched Ella collapse, he felt panic, pain, then nothing at all.

* * * * *

Ella awoke to a familiar face. At first she thought that she was dreaming; there was no way in hell he could be _here_, on her ship. He was terrified of space! She shut her eyes tightly and willed herself to wake up. Opening her eyes again, the face was still there. She sat up abruptly, nearly beaning him in the nose with her forehead, and looked around frantically.

"What the hell? Where am I?" she demanded. It looked like a sickbay, but there were no faces around her that she recognized besides his.

"It's okay, you're in sickbay on the _Enterprise_. You passed out." There was no glimmer of recognition in his eyes, and Ella didn't blame him. She was very far from the girl she'd been at eighteen. "Lay back down, Commander, I haven't finished my scans."

Ella paused, then took the plunge. "You don't recognize me, do you?"

"Any reason I should?" he said, busying himself with the medical tricorder and waving it around her head. She batted him away.

"I'm fine," she insisted, reaching up and pulling her hair out of its tight, regulation bun. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. "How 'bout now?"

"Ella?" he murmured, incredulous.

"Hey, Leo."

"Since when has anybody called you Leo, Bones?" said Jim, entering sickbay in time to overhear Ella's final statement. McCoy was busy gaping at Ella, struck dumb. "Bones?"

"Uh, Jim... You remember that one and only time I drank?" Ella said.

"Sure," he said, frowning. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you remember the reason?" Ella pressed, hoping that he would be able to guess what she was getting at on his own so that she wouldn't have to tell him. _Come on, Jim, you're a fucking genius. You can be so stupid sometimes, though..._

"Yeah, it was that guy from..." He trailed off, his mouth popping open into a comical O and his eyes bugging out. His gaze rolled from Ella to McCoy and back again.

"Bones, where were you from, exactly?" he asked meekly.

"Georgia," he answered quietly, having found his voice. His eyes stayed fixed on Ella.

"Aw Hell, really? Really? You're the southern gentleman with the..." His gaze turned to Ella. "And you're the wonderful redhead who has the perfect..." He barked out a laugh, then got a disgusted look on his face. "That means you... ewww..." he said, screwing his face up in an expression of disgust. "Not something I ever wanted to think about."

An awkward silence ensued. Jim's face then brightened.

"Hey, fun fact, you both drove each other to whiskey!" he said. Both Ella and McCoy glared at him. He pretended to hear something from outside in the hall. "What was that, Mr. Scott? Oh, yes, I'll be right there." He made his escape, leaving Ella and McCoy to stew in the awkward soup he'd cooked up.

"So what happened on the bridge, Commander?" McCoy asked, resuming his scans of her cranium.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "The way I left... I was just..."

"If we could stick to findin' out what happened on that bridge, I'd be much obliged," McCoy interrupted brusquely, keeping his eyes on the scanner. He refused to look her in the eye. This made Ella angry. Granted, the way it ended wasn't exactly ideal, but it had happened, and it was good while it lasted. If they were going to work together (for clearly this was the case), they needed to move past this.

"If I'm going to work here, you need to be able to look me in the eye," she said. The rest came out in a bit of a muddle, because she feared that if she didn't get it all out at once, she wouldn't get it out at all. "Can you do that? I know what I did was wrong, and I'm sorry if it hurt you, but it was a long time ago. I've moved on, and I assume you have too. Whatever vestige of anger you're holding onto towards me, work through it. Because I'm here to stay."

"I'm not angry," he responded, and the tone of his voice told her that this was true. "It just caught me off guard a bit to see you, that's all. I never expected to see you again. But no, I'm not angry. I knew it was gonna end soon anyway, and you might have been right. It probably was easier that way."

"So are we good?" Ella hazarded.

"We'd better be," he said, glancing at her wrist, "given you outrank me."

Her gaze was drawn to his wrists. They bore only the stripe and a half that denoted the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

"So I do," she said, pleased. "I'd say we're about even, though: you're still the Chief Medical Officer."

"Fair enough," he said. His tricorder beeped, and he glanced at it. "Your noggin's fine, other than elevated levels of adrenaline. Can you tell me what happened?"

"I have no idea. I went to shake the First Officer's hand, I got déjà-vu, and I passed out. I didn't have breakfast this morning, maybe that's why I fainted."

"If your lack of a morning meal could knock out most of the bridge crew as well, maybe that would be a rational explanation," he said. "But I doubt that your nutritional choices have any effect on them."

"Other people passed out too?" Ella asked.

"Only a few, and just for a moment or so. You and Spock got the brunt of it. I honestly have no idea what could have caused this, and I've seen some pretty damn weird things."

"They made it so that if-..." Ella began, then stopped. Her brain had started to supply the solution, but then it was gone. "No, I don't know."

McCoy gave her a queer look.

"I'd like to take a more detailed scan of your brain, if you don't mind," he said. "It might give me a bit more insight."

She consented. She was in and out of the scanning chamber in under a minute, and she noted once she had re-emerged that there was no other patients in the room.

"Is Commander Spock alright?" she asked.

"I released him to his quarters to meditate. He said that would do him good," McCoy responded.

"May I go speak to him?" Ella asked. "Maybe we could shed some light on the situation, or at least determine how to avoid having it happen again."

"Alright, but don't shake hands again."

"Will do," Ella responded, got off the examination table and left sickbay. A moment later she returned. "Where exactly are his quarters?"

McCoy gave her directions and she set off again. After taking a few wrong turns, she found the right door and pressed the comm button. The door beeped and slid open. Ella took this as an invitation to come in.

The temperature in the room was slightly above normal to reflect the climate of his homeworld, and it was sparsely decorated. The Vulcan himself was in the process of standing up from a mat in front of a table that bore incense and a sculpture. He turned to face her.

"May I help you, Commander?" he asked. He still wore his uniform, despite the fact that he was in his quarters. It made Ella a bit less uncomfortable about interrupting him.

"I just wondered if you could shed some light on the events of earlier, Sir," Ella said, holding her back so straight it hurt. She wanted to show him that she could be a proper officer. She knew the importance of a first impression, and she also knew that she had shot her opportunity of giving him a good one. This might be her chance to remedy that.

"I... cannot," he said. For a moment, he looked like he had something else to say, but thought better of it. "What happened on the bridge is not a common phenomenon among my people."

"So it has happened before, though."

"It generally occurs because the brain has been trained to recognize certain stimuli as threats, and reacts by sending out a debilitating psychic pulse. The drawback is that the energy that this pulse uses then returns to the originator with a significant increase in force. A mind meld is used to effectuate this training. However, I have no memory of such undergoing such conditioning, and I highly doubt that you have undergone it, either."

"Not to my knowledge," Ella said. "If neither of us has been subjected to that sort of mind meld, then why did... whatever it was occur?"

"I do not know," Spock responded, a pensive look settling over his features. "If you will permit me, perhaps a mind meld will dispel some of the confusion."

Ella was taken aback; she had been under the impression that a mind meld was an intensely private and intimate thing.

"Would that be appropriate, sir?" she asked. "I have no problem with it if it will shed light on the situation, but it was my understanding that a mind meld wasn't something to be shared with a complete stranger."

_You are not a complete stranger,_ Spock's mind supplied before he could stop it, and it puzzled him. Why would he have thought that? They had only met an hour ago.

"The result of our handshake is, in Standard, known as a psi-pulse. The training that enables individuals to produce it is very sparsely used at present, and the fact that it occurred warrants investigation. It is a very serious matter, and I am willing to disregard my... personal boundaries in order to deduce why it transpired."

"Agreed," Ella said, although the thought of joining minds with another person made her slightly uncomfortable.

"It would be easier if we were both sitting," Spock suggested, and gestured towards the mat that he had been kneeling on. Ella knelt, and Spock joined her, their knees nearly touching as they faced each other. For a moment or two, Ella did her best to direct her gaze anywhere but at him. Then her eyes found his, and her trepidation disappeared. His long, slim fingers found the pressure points on her cheek, temple and brow, and he shut his eyes. She followed his example.

"My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts," he began, and Ella began to find the walls of her mind slowly crumbling. His mind against hers did not feel like an intrusion, however; it felt somehow familiar. "Our minds are merging... Our minds are becoming..."

_**ONE.**_

Spock's hand flew away from her face, and suddenly, Ella _knew_. Her memories didn't rush back into place, she didn't see them as they flew past her mind's eye. One minute they weren't there and the next minute they were; it was as simple as that. Ella looked at Spock, eyes wide and chest heaving. The look on his face, now so achingly familiar, reflected hers: he knew, too.

"Spock?" she said, breaking the silence.

"Ella," he whispered, pressed his hand back against her face and guided it up for a kiss that rocked them both to their souls. It had been so long....

They had a lot of catching up to do.

* * *

There will be happy, sexy times in the next chapter. That's a promise.


	19. Chapter 19: Finally

A/N: Well, here she is! I know this is what you've all been waiting for, but it's not SUPER smutty. I mean, there's no pussyfooting around the subject matter, but it ain't dirty. This is LOVEMAKING, PEOPLE! Anyway. Don't rate too harshly.

P.S: CB, you know who you are, I would respectfully ask you to NOT read this chapter. Otherwise I shall blush furiously upon our next meeting. That is all.

* * *

Finally

"I cannot believe they would be able to make us-..."

"Shh, don't speak," Ella said after he had broken their deep, long kiss to say what was on his mind. "We have all the time in the world to talk about it."

"Technically, that statement is incorrect. The human lifespan-..."

Ella quieted him by pressing her lips to his and tangling her fingers in his silky black hair. They were both still kneeling, an awkward position for kissing, but neither of them cared. As the kiss deepened, Spock leaned forward, laying Ella down gently onto her back on the floor. He held his hand behind her head and used it to cushion the impact as he simultaneously shifted his body so that he lay atop her. Ella unfolded her legs from beneath her. Her body was singing, and every motion that brought her closer to him made her feel brighter and more joyful than she'd ever felt before in her life. She hadn't been very active romantically during her years at the Academy: her decision to forgo alcohol had ruled out many encounters. In order to maintain a professional reputation aboard the _Perseus_, she'd avoided romance, despite the various opportunities she'd been presented with. All in all, it had been a while.

And what a way to quench the thirst after the drought! Ella's head was spinning, and she was drowning in all the sensation. She didn't care. As his scalding hands skimmed over her body, even through the fabric of her uniform she could feel the tenderness and desire behind the touch. His deceptively powerful body pinned her to the floor, but she didn't feel trapped. She felt safe.

Her hands found the hem of his shirt and tugged it upwards, and she ran her hands across his hips and lower back. She pushed her hands further up, over his shoulders. Under her gentle touch, she could feel the coiled muscles relaxing. He broke the kiss and sighed against her lips. Against all odds, Ella saw a small smile quirk the corners of his mouth upwards. It made her heart soar.

"There is something that I intended to say a long time ago, but was robbed of the chance," Spock said before Ella could kiss him again. "Ella, I- I believe that... that I..." The normally eloquent Vulcan was lost for words.

"You what, Spock?" Ella thought she knew what he was going to say, but she _really_ wanted to hear him say it.

"I love you," he said, all in one breath, eyes tightly shut. Having thrown caution and control to the wind the moment he kissed her, he deduced that things could not, as humans said, get any worse. "I always have."

"_Taluhk nash-veh k'dular, ashayam,_" Ella whispered in Vulcan, reaching up to touch his cheek. "I love you, too."

They did not speak at all after those words were exchanged. There was no need.

Spock's lips burned up Ella's skin as he slowly, carefully slid her tunic up and off her. She did the same to him, and as more and more of their flesh came in contact, her temperature shot through the roof. By the time they were both down to their regulation undergarments, Ella was surprised not to be seeing embers glowing beneath her skin. She couldn't care less that they were on the floor, that she probably had somewhere to be and she hadn't even been to her new quarters yet; all she wanted was to be closer to him, as close as physically possible. Without even knowing it, she'd been missing him for eight years, and eight years worth of loneliness is a lot to make up for. Each of his kisses made up for, perhaps, an hour lost. By that reckoning, he had approximately 70,000 to go in order to make up for the right years they'd spent apart.

She could deal with that.

Suddenly, in one swift motion, Spock wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up. It was as though she weighed nothing at all, despite her decidedly curvy physique, (no amount of physical training or hours pressing weights in the gym could get rid of those stubborn hips) and in his arms she felt like a waif, weighing barely more than air. He must have caught onto her discomfort at having her back pressed into the floor. Eyes fixed to hers, he carried her over to the bed and gently set her down. She smiled at him radiantly, and although his mouth stayed stationary, his eyes smiled back. His fingers combed through her long hair, and for a long moment, he did not kiss her. Not with his lips, that is. One of his hands was tangling with hers, and sparks passed between their fingers.

Spock stared down at her, and a curious sensation filled his chest, as though someone had filled it with some sort of buoyant gas. He had never felt this way during his short-lived relationship of necessity with Nyota, and the only time he could recall experiencing anything like it was the day Ella left and he worked up the courage to kiss her. The feeling thrilled him, and he believed more experiments with these sensations were warranted.

Soon all that separated them was a thin layer of sweat. Without a word, gesture or look, Spock knew they were both ready. Kissing her deeply, he sank slowly, gently, reverentially inside her. Ella clutched at his shoulders and sighed, joy spilling through her. How many people get to find that one person they're meant for, let alone get to be with them as she was with him at that moment? In perfect union for a perfect moment, lost in his dark eyes while his were lost in the sea behind her blue ones.

He started to move, and the heat that had started between Ella's legs spread upwards through her midsection and into the rest of her body. She moaned his name. Spock's hands skimmed over her body, memorizing its shape and texture, revelling in the curves of her hips, the lines of her shoulders, the contours of her breasts and the shape of her face. He was so warm, and Ella felt so safe and loved...

_She is truly exquisite_, thought Spock, the only semi-coherent though he was able to form, distracted as he was by the feeling of being within her. As his hands ghosted over her skin, he noted dimly that many faint scars marred her body, particularly on her back and shoulders. He did not ask, though he wished to know who had dared hurt her. This was not the time or place for that conversation. He filed it away for future consideration.

They felt the ship go to warp as they coupled. They shared a knowing look, understanding that there were places they should be at that moment. But there was no place they would rather be than right there. The stars flew past outside the window. Ella could feel his heart, beating frantically against her stomach, a reminder that although his heart wasn't located in the same place as a human's, it still beat for her. His eyes stayed fixed to hers as he quickened his pace, pressing a hand to her face as he whispered her name. Their minds latched on to one another, and they experienced their lovemaking as one individual, sharing in sensations, emotions and reactions. Just before they tumbled off the edge of reality together, one faint memory slipped out from where it had been buried, deep in Ella's subconscious. It was the voice of one of the men who had torn them apart, and he sounded rather peeved and slightly incredulous, if one could read those sort of emotions from a Vulcan. He had been in the middle of the meld when he'd made this comment to his companion

... _"Fascinating. I have found evidence of an established bond between this human and Spock. There was no ceremony performed, how did this... Aha. This could prove to be a complication. They seem to be _k'hat'n'dlawa_. This will render many of our safeguards ineffective... Pardon? Yes, perhaps you are right. We should jam her communications for the next few days. Should we be unable to intercept Spock once we return to Vulcan, there is always the chance that he may contact her. And total recall would be almost inevitable while one half of the bond still has his memories and triggers a memory. This must be stopped as quickly and efficiently as possible. Hand me the hypospray, please..."_

Ella smiled. Even the bastards who'd stolen everything from them had been able to recognize that what they were destroying was special. Spock picked up on this, and inside, he smiled too.

Their combined minds flew into an oblivion of bliss. Their bodies, minds and souls were as one, and the starship around them seemed to melt away. They found themselves suspended in light and warmth and love, and for an eternal moment, everything was forgotten. They'd found each other.

Finally.

* * *

Yay happiness! But what's this? Do I see misfortune on the horizon? Oh no! R + R, and you'll learn what ominous things I see!


	20. Chapter 20: Parameters

A/N: So I'm sorry to have confused you with the chapter that wasn't. I was originally not going to have them remember each other at all for a while, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for happiness. I was, however, still holding onto plot threads that necessitated amnesia. It took a well-placed review to show me why I felt so bad about Chapter 20: Attempt #1. I hate daytime TV, and "Mac", whoever you are, you're right: it was feeling like a soap. I hope you can all forgive the bout of madness. "Mac", if you're reading this by any chance, I hope that you understand how appreciated your review was and that you won't give up on me. On with the happiness!!

* * *

Parameters

"Ella?"

"Mmm?" Ella didn't have any energy or any interest in speaking for at least the next few hours. She felt more like a puddle of happy-goo than a person.

"We should discuss the parameters of our involvement," Spock continued, voice lucid. However, although the words were businesslike, the tone was tender.

"Now?" she said, rolling over to look at him. "I'm barely able to think, let alone talk about 'our involvement'." She snuggled into his warm chest. "Can't we just... appreciate this? Finally being together after everything?"

"I am inclined to agree, despite the fact that it is illogical to delay," Spock said, pulling her in close. She could feel the contented buzz of his mind against hers.

"You want parameters? Fine. Here they are: you're mine, I'm yours and I don't care who knows it," Ella said. "We're of the same rank, so no-one can complain. I've spent eight years alone, and I am soo ready for it to obvious that I'm in love."

"Those parameters are acceptable," Spock said. "But as for taking time to appreciate our reunion, I believe that your shift in sickbay starts in 13.5 minutes. Perhaps we can schedule some further appreciation tonight?"

"Shit, is it really almost 1400 hours?" Ella exclaimed. She shot up and looked at the timepiece beside his bed. "Dammit!"

She leapt out of bed and went hunting for her clothes. Spock watched her, bemused, as she scampered around his quarters, half-clad, frantically muttering curses in many different languages. She finally put her uniform back together, and looked into a mirror. She scowled.

"I _look_ like I've just had amazing sex!" she whined, combing her fingers through her hair in a vain attempt to have it lie flat. "Is it really obvious?"

"Yes," Spock replied immediately. "But I am fully aware that you have recently engaged in above-average sexual activities, so perhaps my opinion is invalid."

Ella uttered an annoyed sound and tied her hair up into a long braid. Deeming her appearance acceptable, she found her boots and quickly tugged them on.

"I get off at 2200, when does your shift end?" Ella asked, coming back over to the bed and perching on the edge. She knew if she got to close to him, it would lead to her being _very_ late for her shift. As enticing as the prospect was, it was her first day. Besides, Doctor McCoy was a shrewd man. There'd be no fooling him.

"It is my day off today," he responded. "Would it be acceptable for you to join me in my quarters for your evening meal after your shift?"

"Very acceptable." Ella leaned in and gave him a feather-light kiss on the mouth. "I'll see you tonight."

"I am favourably anticipating it," Spock said. The sight of him lying in bed, unabashedly nude and _so goddamn_ sexy, almost made her change her mind about leaving. She stood up and walked to the door before her resolve could weaken any further.

"Love you," she called over her shoulder, relishing being able to say it.

"And you," he replied. "I hope your first shift is enjoyable."

"Thanks," she said, flashing him a smile. She couldn't wait for her shift to be over.

She made it to sickbay just as the clocks were changing to 1400. McCoy looked up as she entered.

"Hi, Ella," he said, grinning. It seemed he, too, was ready to move past everything. Ella was glad. "How about a tour?"

"Sure," she chirped. He looked at her suspiciously, caught a bit off guard by her perkiness.

"What's with the gleefulness? It's just a sickbay," he said.

"Oh, I'm just happy to be here," she said. "Plus, I just regained all my memories of my soul-mate that were stolen from us by these secret Vulcan government agents eight years ago. Yep, we offended his intended bride with our feelings, she had us separated, and we only just got together. So you'll forgive me if I'm a bit peppy, but fabulous sex will do that to a girl."

McCoy stared.

"What?" he bleated.

"Yep, I'm in a great mood," Ella added happily. "You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Spock sure is a tiger in the bedroom."

He couldn't have looked more surprised if she'd just confessed to sleeping with a narwhal.

"You... and Spock?" he said, brow furrowing. "We're talking about the same guy, right?"

"Tall, pointy ears, likes logic _a lot_?" Ella said. Bones nodded. "Yeah, same guy."

McCoy's eyebrows slowly went down as Ella told him an abbreviated version of what had happened eight years ago. When she'd finished, he heaved a sigh and pushed a hand through his hair.

"It's too crazy to be made up," he said. "Besides, it explains those shenanigans on the bridge. Only thing I don't get is, why you? I thought this _k'hat _thing was only supposed to occur between two Vulcans."

"Damned if I know," Ella said. "But I'm not about to complain." She was silent for a few moments, then decided that while they were sharing, she might as well tell him what she hadn't had the courage to say eight years ago.

"You were my first, y'know."

"_What_?" McCoy exploded. "Ella, why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're too much of a goddamn gentleman to have gone any further with me if I'd told you the truth. And I wanted to. I mean, if I'd stayed... no, that's in the past. I'm not gonna dredge up things that'll just make this more awkward than it needs to be. But you needed to know. I'm sorry I kept that from you." There was a pause, and McCoy just looked at her, fondness in his eyes.

"I'm honoured, Ella," he said quietly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Ella said.

There was a long pause. Finally, McCoy broke the silence, clapping his hands together.

"Well, that's outta the way. Let's show you around then get some work outta you."

Ella grinned. She'd missed him.

* * * * *

Her shift was about halfway done when Jim came into the sickbay, with Spock trailing behind him. He strode up to Ella, planted his feet, crossed his arms and looked at her without speaking. She ignored him as she finished bandaging an ensign's plasma burn. Once the young man had been sent on his way, she turned to him.

"Something I can do for you, Captain?"

"My First Officer says you both have something that you wish to share with me," he said, looking at Spock. "But that he wanted for me to find out from both of you. What might this something be?"

"Jimmy, you remember the day I came home from Vulcan, all giddy and waxing eloquent about this guy I'd met?" Ella said. Jim nodded slowly, narrowed eyes flicking between them. "Then I mysteriously lost all memory of him over the course of an afternoon? Yeah, you're looking at him."

Jim looked at Spock, stunned. "YOU'RE the studly, dark-eyed Vulcan that she was on about?" He turned back to Ella. "What _is it_ with you and my command crew?"

"What does 'studly' imply?"

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I've never been with Chekov, Scotty, Sulu or Uhura," Ella supplied with an angelic smile on her face. They both ignored Spock.

"What a relief," Jim grumbled. He then turned to Spock. "Okay, here's the deal. You guys want to be together, I support and applaud this. Just two conditions: Don't let it mess with your duties, and Spock, if you ever do anything that hurts her... Well, I probably won't actually kill you given you're my friend and First Officer, but be prepared for lots pain if you do."

"I assure you, Captain, I would never conceive of doing any such thing," Spock said.

"That's a relief," Jim said. "You'd probably end up kicking my ass again, anyway."

"There is a high statistical likelihood that your statement is correct, Jim," Spock replied. Which was essentially Vulcan for _you're damn right I'd kick your ass_. Ella held in a giggle.

"Alright, I've said what I came to say," Jim said. "Carry on, Ellie."

"Yes, sir," she said. After sharing a look with Spock, she dutifully started gathering up the detritus from patching up her burn victim.

As Jim and Spock went to leave sickbay, however, McCoy came out of his office and stopped Spock.

"Can I talk to you for a moment, Commander?" he said, looking as awkward as a man possibly could. "In private?"

"Of course, Doctor," Spock replied. "I will meet you on the bridge, Captain?"

"Sure thing, Spock," Jim replied, looking a bit suspicious. He left sickbay, glancing over his shoulder and wondering what Bones was up to.

"What can I do for you, Doctor?" Spock asked once they were inside McCoy's office and the door was shut behind them.

"There's something I need to say," McCoy said. He took in a deep breath. "Ella explained the... way things are between the two of you. The whole... k'hatn'whatever thing. And I need to apologize."

"For what, Doctor?"

"Ella and I... We were together. For a little while, I mean. It was just after she'd gotten home from her exchange, but I guess she had no memory of you at that point. We dated for about a month. And if all this babble about soul-mates is true, then I took somethin' that rightfully you shoulda had. She just told me that I was the first guy she'd ever been with." He tilted his chin up. "I understand if you wanna clock me one."

Spock just looked at him. "Doctor, your apology is appreciated but unnecessary. She made a decision, and we should both respect that. I am... gratified that she chose you. In my experience, you are a good person and a caring man. Despite the fact that it unsettles me to think that she has been with another man, I know that you would not have been with her if you had not cared for her. It is acceptable."

"Okay, in that case," McCoy said, trying to stifle his surprise, "you hurt her, I'll kill you."

"Noted. Although I do not believe you would get a chance: either Jim would inflict injury upon me first or..." The Vulcan trailed off uncharacteristically.

"Or what?"

"Or I would have already dispatched myself." McCoy stared at him, shocked. "I would find it illogical to live with myself should I cause harm to the person I cannot live without. However, it is difficult for me to conceive of a situation where I would allow myself to harm her, so your statement is most likely irrelevant."

"It better be," McCoy grumbled, but it was in good nature. He knew Spock would take care of her. "Now, don't you have something you could be doing?"

"You are right, Doctor," Spock said. "I have some reports to finish. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah." Once Spock had left, McCoy smiled grudgingly. At least the man hadn't throttled him.


	21. Chapter 21: Burn

A/N: Alrighty, so this chapter isn't super plot heavy (actually it's more along the lines of hot and heavy... haha I'm funny... it's way too late at night... I should really be in bed). Warnings include language and sexy times. Hooray, don't we all love cursing and sex. Here you go. Enjoy, and don't forget to review!

* * *

Burn

2200 hours couldn't come quickly enough for Ella. When her shift finally ended, she sent Spock a quick text message, telling him that she'd be there in under half an hour, she just needed to shower and change out of her uniform. He acknowledged her, and said that he "anticipated it favourably". This was essentially Vulcan-speak for "you'd better fucking get here soon because I am DYING of excitement".

She rushed to the quarters assigned to her on B-Deck. It took her a few minutes, given she hadn't bothered to find them yet. Finding the door unlocked, she strode in and found the room already occupied by a young woman, dancing quite wildly to what Ella recognized as the early 21st century artist "Lady Gaga", and singing along at the top of her lungs. The woman's face was familiar, and she hadn't noticed Ella yet. Ella waited, leaning against the doorframe and smiling slightly. Finally the need to get moving with her evening became too pressing, and she delicately cleared her throat. The dancing woman whirled to face her, ordering the computer to stop the music, and Ella suddenly found herself engulfed in a firm hug. Much squealing ensued as Ella was reunited with her Academy roommate, who she hadn't seen for four years.

Once they had calmed down a bit, Charlie flopped down on one of the two beds in the room and grinned at her friend.

"They told me I was getting a new roommate, but they never told me it'd be you, Ellie!" she proclaimed. Ella started to root through one of her bags, searching for something to wear that night other than her uniform.

"I would've thought this would give it away," Ella said, pulling Akhil's bat'leth out and laying it on her bed. "And don't give me that look, I can tell you snooped in my stuff."

"I was just curious, and I didn't make it as far as that old sword of yours," Charlie said. "Besides, what was I supposed to do? I was told my new roommate would be arriving this morning, not fifteen hours later."

"I was... unavoidably detained this morning," Ella said evasively, suppressing a smile as she went through that morning's activities in her mind. "Then I had a shift in sickbay. Sorry."

"And you're not still there? Don't you usually stay an extra, like, five hours a day in that place?"

"I... have plans for the evening," Ella said, pulling out a skirt and tank top that she'd bought in Europe during the few weeks she'd had between graduation and being posted on the _Perseus_. She'd never worn the embroidered shirt from Spain or the knee-length tiered skirt from Paris before, having had no occasion to do so. They would do nicely for that evening, however.

"Plans? What plans? With who?" Charlie asked, mildly alarmed. "We were at the Academy for four years and I don't think you went out once of your own volition; you're here less than a day and you already have plans? Did you change drastically while out in the middle of nowhere? Because if so, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I _liked_ my introverted roommate, just as she was."

"No, I'm still the same old Ella," Ella replied, stripping off her uniform and regulation undergarments and heading for the bathroom. "Just with a few notable improvements."

"Improvements?" Charlie repeated, following her into the bathroom. Any awkwardness between them had long since faded, and Charlie perched on the toilet seat as Ella jumped into the shower. As Ella washed her hair and shaved her legs she gave Charlie a rundown of her morning and the events eight years ago that had contributed to it. The only thing she wouldn't give her was the name of the man. Finally, once Ella had finished in the shower and started to dry her hair, Charlie lost her admittedly fraying patience.

"Who's the guy?" she exploded. "Tell me!"

"Hey, want to know something funny and coincidental? Turns out that guy I told you about, the one at Ole' Miss? Yeah, that's the CMO. Crazy shit, huh?"

"I'd be **so** much more interested in that at some other time than right now," Charlie said, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting. Ella applied some faint tinges of makeup and strode out of the bathroom in only a towel. Charlie followed, stomping out of the bathroom in an attempt to make her irritation heard. As Ella searched in her bag for some underwear that was at least marginally sexy, Charlie continued to attempt to wheedle her into giving her the name. Ignoring her, Ella chose a matching, ivory coloured bra and panty set and pulled it on, donning her outfit over top of it. She tugged on her boots, the only pair of shoes she had that weren't buried at the bottom of a bag, and stood up, fluffing out her long, loose curls and sighing contentedly.

"Oh no, I know that look," Charlie said. "You have fallen hard, sister."

"I should hope so," Ella said as she headed out the door. "After all, Spock is my soul-mate."

The door closed behind her, cutting off her friend's reaction. Ella knew that she'd get chewed out when she returned to the room, but she didn't think that would happen until at least the next day. In any case, she wasn't worried. Charlie was bound to understand.

Ella felt giddy as she walked through the corridors on the way to Spock's quarters. The thought of spending time with him made her head spin with delight, and as she'd been leaving that morning, she'd already been counting the minutes until she would be with him again. It was like her mind was making up for the years they'd been apart when she _hadn't_ missed him. She quickened her pace, fairly leaping for the turbolift as the doors were shutting, startling the two engineers already inside. She gave them an embarrassed smile, then started to rock back and forth on the balls of her feet, willing the turbolift to go faster.

Finally it reached his level. She almost flew out of the turbolift, clipping her shoulder on the door as she passed it. She ignored the sting and power-walked down the corridor until she reached his room. After taking a moment to compose herself, she pressed the intercom. The door slid open as soon as she did, and she eagerly slipped inside.

He met her at the door. Before she could utter a greeting or any sort of acknowledgement, his lips were pressed to hers, sealing their mouths together in a searing kiss. She combed her hands into his smooth hair, pressing herself against him and smiling against his lips. His hands encircled her waist, pulling her in closer, the heat of his slim fingers warming her skin through the fabric of her top. She stood on tiptoe, wanting to be as close to him as she physically could. His tongue slipped past her lips and slid against hers, and the bold move had her weak in the knees. Their coupling that morning hadn't been leisurely or involved: it had been an imperative for them, intense and beautiful as a lightning storm and over almost as quickly. After so much time apart, they couldn't have viably taken their time. But now... Now they had the time to take it slow, appreciate everything.

After several minutes, they broke apart.

"Hello to you, too," Ella said breathlessly. She placed a hand on his chest. "How was your day?"

"Unremarkable between approximately 1400 hours and now. Other than that, the day has been more than satisfactory."

"Well, I guess that's something," Ella said. She glanced around the room. It was darkened, and a table had been set up by the window. Several candles burned brightly in glass holders, and a single orchid floated in a bowl of water in the center of the table. Silverware and plates had been meticulously set up, and Ella bit her lip. It was perfect.

"I researched human courtship rituals, and evidently a 'nice dinner' is one of the staples," he said, seeing her looking at the table. "I hope it is appealing."

"Spock, it's perfect," Ella said, walking over to take a closer look. "How did you know that I liked orchids?"

"I inquired with the Captain," he said. "He was most forthcoming with your preferences with regards to... everything, it seems. It was most useful."

"I'm sure it was," Ella said, giving him a bemused glance. She looked around, and gasped as she took in what she'd missed before. Tiny clusters of tea lights twinkled around the room, and vases with every variety of orchid imaginable were placed on various surfaces. The ceiling lights weren't even on; the only light in the room came from the candles.

"Where did you get all these flowers? And won't people get mad at you or something for burning candles?" Ella exclaimed, eyes wide as she surveyed the beautiful space he'd created.

"The flowers are from the hydroponics bay, with the exception of the one in the bowl. That was a donation from Lieutenant Sulu, whose botanical collection is quite remarkable. As for the candles, I have permission to burn them, as well as incense, given it is necessary for my meditation."

"Ah," Ella said, still slightly shell-shocked. She turned to him with a gleam in her eye. "Well, I'm not hungry just yet. Anything you can think of that we could do to remedy that?"

Spock came over to her and laced his fingers through hers. Electricity zinged through the contact, and Ella shivered with anticipation. Their clasped hands were the equivalent of a Vulcan make-out sesh, and it left her breathless.

"Physical activity can often make participants feel hungry," he said in a low voice, thumb tracing along the lines in her hand.

"I believe you're right, Mr. Spock," Ella said, feigning surprise. "Shall we adjourn to the gymnasium, then?"

"I believe it would be in both of our best interests if we performed the physical activities that I have in mind here. I do not wish to alarm anyone," he added, and Ella smiled. She loved it when his sense of humour peeked through.

"Agreed," Ella said. She looked down at their joined hands and a thought struck her. Slowly, with her eyes locked to his, she brought their hands up to her lips and kissed the tip of his index finger. He sighed, and his eyelids fluttered unconsciously. Encouraged by his reaction, she ran her tongue along the length of his finger. He groaned, deep in his throat, and his other hand grasped her arm in a death grip. When she took his finger in her mouth entirely, his breath hitched and his head tipped back. He pulled her closer, and she could feel that her ministrations to his hands had had a very _direct_ effect on other parts of him.

A few more moments of this and Spock's facade of calm dissolved. He pulled his hand away from her mouth and placed it on her hip, slim fingers digging into her flesh hard enough that she knew they would leave bruises. His other hand twisted into her still slightly damp hair, pulling her face up to his for a blisteringly passionate kiss. She moaned against his lips, hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt and tugging him closer. She started to move backwards, towards the bed, and he followed her, tumbling down with her when they reached it. They continued kissing there, and Ella arched up towards him. He pushed at the fabric of her shirt, sliding it up and off. He tossed it to the floor and began to administer hot kisses to her belly and ribcage. He moved up, trailing kisses between her breasts and along her collarbone, gently suckling at her neck just enough to leave a faint mark.

"That necessary?" Ella asked quietly, but with an amused smile on her pink, swollen lips.

"I simply wish to make it abundantly clear that you are taken," he said, returning to kissing her neck. As he did so, Ella pulled his shirt upwards and off. As soon as it was off he moved back up to kiss her full on the lips, hands skimming over her waist and up to the clasp of her bra. He worked it off and it joined both of their shirts on the floor. He cupped her breasts in his warm palms and ran his thumbs over her nipples. She gasped and pushed up towards him, grabbling at the muscles in his shoulders like a drowning woman seizes a lifeboat. His hands on her skin, his lips against hers... it was all enough to make her simply come apart. She was putty in his hands.

Her skirt was next. It joined its brethren on the deck, and his pants soon followed.

"You are... so... exceptionally beautiful," Spock breathed between kisses. They were both panting now, and a sheen of sweat gleamed on their skin. His quarters were always warmer than normal, but at that moment it felt almost as though they were surrounded by desert instead of cold metal and icy vacuum.

Ella could feel his erection through the thin fabric of their underwear, and she bucked up against him. He moaned, pressing down on her, and the delicious friction had Ella tossing her head back against the mattress. His finger hooked into the waistband of her panties and tugged them off with one swipe. Before Ella could think, before she could reciprocate, he had delved a finger between her legs. White-hot arousal blasted through Ella, and she keened, her legs falling open further in order to give him better access. Through the connection their minds now made automatically she could feel how _good_ it felt for him to have his hand, one of the most sensitive parts of him, touching her there. His thoughts devolved into a stream of disconnected notions as they came to her across the bond.

_..._

His fingers brushed _that spot_ and Ella saw constellations and galaxies as her eyes fluttered shut and she hissed his name. She was perilously close to the edge, and she didn't want to go over without him. He felt this through the bond and reluctantly withdrew those exceptional digits. Ella's hands trembled as they went for his waistband, and she felt like she couldn't get them off fast enough.

"Please, hurry... can't wait much longer," she slurred as he kicked the underwear off. She wrapped a hand around the base of him and he shuddered. Gathering her up in his arms, he sat up, pulling her into his lap and sinking into her to the hilt. She cried out, having forgotten in the space of twelve hours how _goddamn hot_ he was. He thrust up into her, hands cupping her rear for leverage. She threw her head back, and he buried his face in her neck and heaved for breath as he started to move faster.

Just then, Ella's stomach growled.

"We have been successful," Spock said, pausing for breath and to almost-smile at Ella. She beamed at him for a moment before returning her attention to their joined bodies, moving her hips in a way that made him groan and tighten his grip. He picked up his pace again. Ella leaned down and kissed him, crying out into his mouth as her orgasm crashed over her. She shuddered and tensed around him, and a few seconds later he joined her, tensing and calling out her name.

Once the last aftershocks had passed, they collapsed, panting, sweating and spent onto the mattress, limbs still entangled. Ella took a deep breath and sighed happily, placing a light kiss on the tip of her beloved's pointed ear.

"Can I take you up on that offer of dinner now?"


	22. Chapter 22: Cage

A/N: Sorry it took me a bit on this one, school has been hectic. Next update may take a week or so, my laptop is being kidnapped until the end of the Olympics. No warnings on this chapter, but it is going to get a bit angsty for the next little while. Be prepared.

* * *

Cage

Ella whistled as she walked through the corridor that led to the bridge with a spring in her step. It had been a week – one glorious week – since she'd come to the _Enterprise_, since she'd found her love again. Somehow things just kept getting better. She divided her time between sickbay, Spock and re-connecting with her myriad friends on the ship, as well as making new ones. She spent most of her time thinking about Spock, however. It amused her to think of sexy things when she knew he was on duty just to see if he'd pick up on them. He usually did, and Jim had asked her a few days ago if she knew why Spock had started having funny little seizures at random moments on the bridge. She'd feigned innocence and suggested he go see Dr. McCoy. Needless to say, these sporadic interludes of images made the Vulcan more than a little bit irked. However, it made their evenings _very_ hot, so Ella had no intention of stopping.

The doors to the bridge hissed open, and Ella entered, finding everyone stopped, looking at the viewscreen. Ella froze in her tracks and stared at the greenery-covered moon in front of them. A sick feeling roared into her stomach and a flood of images sprang unbidden to the front of her mind.

_Everyone happy, traipsing through the jungle and marvelling at the incredible flora. The shot of red death that had struck her crewmate square in the chest, not a meter in front of her, the only warning they'd gotten... _

_The smell of burning flesh..._

_Being dragged by her ankle across the forest floor, half-conscious as she bounced along over roots and dead leaves and God knows what else, hearing the yells of her Captain as he received much the same treatment in front of her..._

_The cold bars of that cage, closing her in, locking her into that tense folded position where she would stay for the next three days, even when her muscles screamed for a stretch and she scrabbled at the walls in her frantic search for just that little centimetre more of space..._

"Jim, what the hell?" she cried, wrenching her mind out of the past and leaping down to where her friend and Captain sat in his command chair. The bridge crew looked up at her in alarm.

"Ella, hey," he said. "Fixing Sulu's sprained wrist shouldn't take a minute right? Then I want you to be part of the away team I'm sending down..."

_"...to the planet. We've done extensive scans, it looks entirely uninhabited. We can stock up on some fresh food, assuming it's edible for humans, and give the crew a bit of a break before we head back home. The past few years have been pretty damn hectic."_

_"Yes, sir, they have. Will you be joining us on the surface?"_

_"Captain's prerogative, Lieutenant."_

"Jim, we have to get away from here as fast as we can, before they pick us up! I think we're opposite their base, but I can't tell from this distance." Ella was panicked, knowing every second that passed brought them closer to the scanners on the planet. "Come on!"

"Ellie, what are you talking about?" Jim asked, turning to face her. "We've done a scan, it's uninhab-..."

"The _Perseus_ charted this moon just as we were returning. We flagged it as dangerous and sent a communiqué to Starfleet Command regarding a possible terrorist operation here. I guess it hasn't been processed yet. Their base was mostly destroyed as we escaped, but by now they'll have rebuilt. We need to leave, now."

"Vasn't eet ze larger of ze two M-class moons in zis system zat vas flagged by ze _Perseus_?" asked Chekov from the forward console. "Because zere is a flag on zis system."

"Why wasn't I told?" Jim demanded.

"My fault, sir," Uhura added from her post. "Remember that encrypted message from Starfleet Command that arrived a few days ago that the computer couldn't decrypt? I had to do it myself, and I only finished this morning. I was actually in the middle of typing it up now. How'd you know there was a flag, Ensign?"

"Because a satellite orbiting zat gas giant just told me so," Chekov responded, pointing to the giant spatial body that the moon was orbiting.

"We left that as a last warning," Ella explained. "In case any Federation ships got out this far before the communiqué went through."

"What does the message say, Lieutenant?" Jim asked of Uhura.

"That we are to avoid the planet at all costs and that a fleet has been dispatched to deal with the terrorist threat that has been issued towards the Federation."

"Terrorist threat? From who?"

"They used to be members of the Federation," Ella supplied. All eyes turned to her. "Many of them are criminals or terrorists on a smaller scale, and they chose to get back at the system that had 'wronged' them. They left the borders of the Federation and started to amass an arsenal and develop a plan. It's like a goddamn cult; they're fanatics. There are no innocent bystanders there: every person there has killed and tortured people. Their leader is a crazy man who makes them call him 'king'. When we found them, they were strong enough to easily dispatch a ship or two, but there's no way they could launch an attack on the Federation. That's probably why Starfleet command doesn't need an immediate solution from us."

"Okay," Jim said. "If Starfleet wants us out of here, we should probably acquiesce. Mr. Sulu, you okay to set a course?"

"Already done, sir," said the helmsman through gritted teeth.

"Take us out of here, then," Jim said. "Mr. Chekov, if you could drop another warning beacon a bit further out in the system, it would be much appreciated."

"Yes, sir, consider eet done," he responded, turning back to his console and beginning to tap furiously.

Mutely, Ella strode over to the helmsman and mechanically healed the sprain he'd sustained during his morning fencing session and ignored. It wasn't a grave injury, and it was fixed in under five minutes.

"Anyone else on the bridge need fixing while I'm here?" Ella asked robotically. Jim looked at her in alarm; Ella was never robotic, and the past week she'd been in a constant state of giddiness. She'd been whistling when she came onto the bridge, for goodness sakes! The abrupt change worried him.

"Ellie, what's the matter?" he asked, standing up and intercepting her as she headed for the doorway that led to the turbolift.

"Nothing, it's fine," she said. "Just... being here brought back memories."

"I bet," Jim said. He was still suspicious, but he knew Ella well enough to know when to back down. "If you want to talk about it, you know I'll listen." Her file from the last few months on the _Perseus_ had been locked and deemed classified, and from that paired with her reaction to seeing that moon, Jim knew there was more to her experiences there than she wanted to discuss.

"Thanks," Ella said, but her eyes were fixed on the door, fixed on her escape route. Jim noticed that they were shining more than normal, and realized she was on the verge of tears. He let her pass.

She'd made it halfway before the doors slid open and Spock rushed in, eyes wide. To the untrained observer, he looked relatively unperturbed, but Jim had been around him long enough to be able to tell when he was agitated. And the look on his face was the Vulcan version of "Holy Shit". He caught sight of Ella and made to go towards her, but she dropped her gaze and tried to push past him. He was having none of this and caught her shoulders, looking at her intently as she pulled them both into the turbolift and the doors hummed closed.

"I could feel your panic from three decks down," he said in a low voice. "What has occurred?"

All Ella could do was lean on his shoulder and let him hold her. She had no words to tell him why she was so upset. So, hesitantly, she took his hand and placed it on her cheek, in the position that would facilitate a mind-meld.

"Are you certain you wish to share this with me?" he asked, and she nodded. Silently grateful for her trust, he let their minds touch.

_The sunshine through the trees danced on the forest floor, making patterns in the fallen leaves as Ella moved through the trees with her roommate, an Andorian named Shira. They were laughing at the antics of some strange reptilian-looking primates and scanning the nearby flora for edible fruits. They could hear the rest of the away team, including the captain, guffawing several meters away. Ella bent down to pluck a long, conical fruit that the tricorder had deemed comestible from a low hanging branch and looked up at her friend just as a blast carved a smoking hole in her chest. The smile died on Shira's azure lips as she tumbled to the ground, and Ella shoved her fist into her own mouth to stifle a scream. She heard the sounds of phaser fire and, after shooting a tear-blurred look at her now-deceased friend, Ella threw herself under the nearest bush. _

_"Shira, Eleanor, run! Get back to the beam-out point!" Ella heard the panicked voice of Captain Reynolds utter a warning, then a yell of pain. She tried to move, but fear froze her muscles and locked her brain into a numb state. She stared at the corpse of her friend through the leaves, right there is front of her, and Ella suddenly became angry at herself. She was a doctor, dammit, she should have been able to save her friend. Even as her clinical eye identified that there was nothing that could have been done, the emotional side of Ella felt culpable. She could hear her Captain yelling, hear the others being felled by phaser blasts, and Ella had to resist the temptation to shove her fingers into her ears. Looking down at the phaser on her belt, Ella made a decision: she would not die cowering in a bush. As much as she was terrified, as much as she wanted to live to see Earth again, to see her mother and Jim, she wasn't prepared to die a coward. Akhil would be ashamed to see the woman Ella had become. So, channelling the vestiges of the Klingon spirit that had been instilled on Rura Penthe, Ella burst out of the plant, phaser spitting death, felling masked figures in camouflage left and right. Her summer training with the MACOs had paid off, and her shots were dead on. Her crewmates had often made jokes when they saw her doing target practice. "She can break 'em then fix 'em up again," they'd say. "She's the circle of life unto herself." Ella had hoped never to be the one doing the breaking._

"There were too many of them," Ella said, breaking the meld and pulling her and Spock out of the past. That whole story had been communicated in just a few seconds of meld, but Spock knew there was much, much more to come, and he knew it would not do to stay in the turbolift. He pressed the comm button on the wall without taking his eyes off of Ella.

"Spock to McCoy," he said.

"McCoy here, what can I do for ya?" came the gruff voice of the CMO.

"Will you be requiring Commander Jones' presence for the next few hours?" Spock asked.

"Well, I got plenty of people on staff right now, so no... But if you're stealin' her away just so the two of you can go at it, I _will_ find out and be very disappointed in the both of you. I swear to God, you're like teenagers..."

"I promise you, Bones, that's not why I need a couple hours off," Ella interjected. Over the past week she'd adopted Jim's nickname for the doctor, deeming it 'fitting'.

There was a mortified silence. Clearly the good doctor had not realized that Ella could hear him.

"Well, that's alright then," he grumbled, and signed off. The doors of the turbolift opened onto Spock's deck, and they headed for his quarters.

Once they were comfortably seated, cross-legged on the bed and facing each other, Spock tentatively re-initiated the meld. Instantly they were back on the surface of that moon...

* * *

Dun dun dun... Pseudo-cliff-hanger!! Huzzah! Review and the next chapter will come faster...


	23. Chapter 23: Sear

A/N:Sorry about all the angst in this chapter and the last, it just needed to all come out at once so we could get back to the happy times. For a bit, at least. Hah. Anyway, mentions of torture, but it isn't too descriptive, I don't have much of a stomach for that sort of thing. Language. No sexy times, sorry. Oh, BTW, for those of you who were confused by the reference to "MACOs" last chapter and haven't watched _Enterprise_, they're sort of like a more militaristic aspect of the Federation. Google if you're curious.

Sear

_One of their shots slammed into Ella's thigh and she went down, dropping her weapon and clutching at her leg. The firing stopped and two of the masked figures quickly found her despite the fairly dense underbrush. They tried to lift her, but she flailed and kicked until they had to drop her. Giving up on the idea of carrying her gently, one of them simply caught hold the ankle of her uninjured leg and started to tug her across the forest floor. Leaves and twigs snagged in her hair, which she'd let down as they'd been foraging, and soon it was a snarled mass of dead plant life and knots. She screamed and grabbed at branches in an attempt to extricate herself from the masked man's grip, but she couldn't get a solid enough grip. Her head struck a rock and specks of blackness invaded her vision. The branches above her seemed to spin, and she stopped struggling, dazed. Another rock hit her skull and everything blinked to black. _

_She woke up sprawled against the prone body of her captain in a windowless concrete room. Her head was aching and spinning, and she could feel the bruises on her back as she sat up. A shock of pain from the wound in her leg shot through her and she had to stop herself from clutching at it. Gingerly, she peeled her trashed uniform trousers away from the seared area and winced when she saw the damage. The flesh had been cauterized by the shot, so there was very little blood, but it was deep and at least second degree. Ella hissed at the pain that was throbbing through it. _

_Ella heard a groan from beside her and looked over to see Captain Reynolds sitting up, catching his head in his hands and squinting at the bright lights inlaid into the ceiling. _

_"Are you injured, sir?" Ella asked, putting aside her own pain in order to see to the well-being of her captain. After all, it would probably be him getting them out of this situation. _

_"My head hurts like a bitch, but that's just from the stun blast," he said. "Other than a few bruises I'm fine, though." He spotted her leg. "Gods!"_

_"It's not so bad," Ella said. "It's not even bleeding, see?"_

_"That's because it's a burn," Captain Reynolds said. "I may not be a doctor, but I'm also not stupid. It's pretty damn bad, Lieutenant."_

_"I'll be fine," Ella insisted. _

_The door swung open, interrupting their conversation. Standing in the doorway was a slim human flanked by a burly Bolian and a gigantic Cardassian. Ella had, of course, never met a Cardassian, but the race was unmistakeable. She swallowed and felt her stomach clench. Since when did humans work with Cardassian? The human looked familiar, but Ella couldn't place him. _

_"Who the hell are you, and what gives you the right to detain two Starfleet officers without accusation or trial?" demanded Captain Reynolds, standing up and staring down the trio of men at the door. _

_"What gives you the right to ask anything of your righteous captors?" replied the human and with a jolt Ella recognized him. It was the voice that did it, and now she could see, plain as day, who he was. His once deep red hair was now streaked with grey, and there were more lines on his face, but he was still the same man. A man with a smooth voice made for "convincing and murmurs", as she'd originally thought when she'd first heard it, over a decade ago now. _

_"You're lucky we spared both your lives," Damian said, sneering down at Ella without a hint of recognition. Ella didn't want him to remember her. He sickened her. "We only need one of you to give us what we need. However, it's always nice to have a spare in case one is… uncooperative. What are your names?"_

_"I'm Captain Patrick Reynolds of the USS Perseus, and this is-…"_

_"Lieutenant Rachel Burns," Ella interrupted. __The captain gave her a strange look but accepted that if she felt the need to give a false name, she probably had a good reason._

_"So nice to meet you," Damian said. "So I don't suppose you'll be giving us the Federation's border access codes willingly? That would make things so much easier for everyone."_

_"You're insane if you think that," Reynolds spat. "Come on. You're from Earth, clearly. You must have had some contact with Starfleet, and therefore you must know that we don't cave to terrorists like you."_

_"Name calling, Captain? Not very refined of you," chided Damian. "Ah well. My way's more fun anyway. Akbhal, could you please fetch their accommodations?"_

_The Cardassian behemoth left the room with a grunt, returning a few moments later carrying two cages about the size of dog crates. Ella shrank against the wall as she realized what they were for. _

_Captain Reynolds was shoved into his prison first, thrashing and yelling as they tried to heave his solid frame into the larger of the two cages. Eventually a hypospray was brought out, and with its hiss against his neck he went still and they pushed him in. Ella was next, but she did not intend to go quietly. She kicked at her captors, trying to keep them from getting a grip on her, but when they finally decided to double-team her they were able to pinion her against the wall and get a firm hand on her. She threw herself from side to side in their grip, scratching at exposed flesh and biting down on anything that came near enough to her mouth. She did _not_ want to go into that crate._

_Eventually, though, her captors won, and Ella found herself crunched into the cage. She rattled around as best as she could, trying to find a weak point in the structure, and, finding none, snarled profanities at her subjugators. They watched her, intrigued, for a little while, but once she digressed into infuriated Klingon they started to lose interest. The two alien left the room, but Damian squatted down next to Ella's cage, looking curious._

_"Where'd you learn to swear like that, little one?" he asked, putting on a kindly expression as he cooed at Ella. She spat at him. Standing abruptly, the benevolent expression slipped off his face like water and was replaced by angry revulsion._

_"It will be a pleasure combing through your knowledge," he snapped. "I've got special treatment in mind for you."_

_"Go to hell," Ella growled at him. Shifting as much as she could, she turned her face away from him. A moment later she heard him leave the room. The lights snapped off, and Ella was left in pitch blackness._

"We stayed in those crates for three days straight. They gave us water once, and it tasted foul. We weren't fed."

Spock was grateful when she broke the meld for a moment to explain. He was glad of the respite: he wanted, needed to hear this, and she needed to share it, but it was a lot to take in, and the emotional transference was very taxing. He ran a hand through her hair and realized that she was shaking. Abandoning their face-to-face position, he pulled her into his lap and rubbed circles on her arms.

"If you wish to cease…"

"No," Ella said resolutely. "I can't just forget about it, pretend it didn't happen. It's just… difficult."

"I understand," Spock said, and Ella knew he did.

"If you ever need to talk about what happened, you know I'm here, right?" Ella said. "I mean, I know it'd be impossible for me to understand that level of loss, but I'm always here to listen if you need to discuss it."

"I know, and I appreciate the offer. But right now is about you. I am here for you currently, not the other way around. However, there will be a time when I am in need of consolation, and when that time comes I will rely on you. But not right now."

Ella nodded and, after taking a shaky breath, guided his hand back to her face.

_"Is that all you got?" Reynolds half-screamed as the electricity ripped through his system again, making his limbs jolt and buck and his short black hair stand on end. Ella wasn't watching or listening, however; she was too concentrated on the Bolian making straight, even slices into her back with a scalpel. If she moved, the knife would slash into her muscles, but if she lay still it only cut enough to bleed and hurt like crazy. She'd learned her lesson after the first cut that had gouged into her left shoulder and lay very still, uttering only the tiniest whimpering. The captain was taking the brunt of the torment, given he was the one with the codes, but their captors were fond of the "tell us or we'll burn another hole in her leg" tactic, and it was taking a toll on both Ella and the captain. _

_Damian sent another, longer pulse of electricity through Reynolds, and the gleeful face he donned as he did it made Ella want to smack that look off his face and be physically ill all at the same time. She was so glad he'd never been in her life. It ashamed her to be related to him._

_He didn't stop the current this time, and Ella knew it would only be a matter of time before her captain's body reached its limit. The human body could only take so much current. As she watched her captain in agony, she made her decision. Her plan probably wouldn't work, but she had to try, or she'd hate herself for the rest of her potentially short life._

_"Stop, he doesn't know!" she cried, and everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Sitting up on the table, she gazed at their abductors with as much impassivity as she could. "He never knew anything."_

_"What are you getting at, my pretty?" Damian asked. Creep. _

_"His real rank is Lieutenant, and he is my navigations officer. A brave man, but not in a position to know what it is you want. He chose to protect me, and consequently my codes, by assuming the role of Captain, but I cannot let my crewmate suffer this way on my account. I'm the captain. He's of no use to you."_

_"Of no use, really?" Damian said. "How do we know you're telling the truth?"_

_"Everybody talks under torture," Ella replied smoothly. "He'd have talked by now if he'd known. No man is that resolute."_

_Damian stared her down, and despite the fact that Ella's body was screaming at her to abandon the charade, she wouldn't give him that satisfaction. _

_"Fine," he said. "I'm not a monster. Toss him into the jungle, give him a fighting chance or whatever. Hell, maybe your mysteriously absent ship will make an appearance and whisk him away. Get him out of here."_

_The semi-conscious captain struggled weakly as he was removed from the electric chair and carried out of the room. He was muttering under his breath, shooting Ella despaired looks. _

_"No no no no no…"_

_"Loyal to the end; he's a good officer," Ella said as the door shut behind them. "If I survive this, I'll be sure to promote him."_

_"My dear," Damian said, coming closer. "What makes you think you'll survive this? I believe I've exhausted my capacity for mercy for the time being."_

_Ella swallowed and shivered. At least she had no codes to give, and the Federation would be safe from these maniacs. They called Damian "your Majesty", for Pete's sakes! _

_"Fuckin' cult," Ella muttered. A tear slipped down her cheek. How had she been s stupid? _

_"Are you afraid?" asked Damian. _

_"No," Ella replied, but knew that he could see the lie in her eyes. "Bring it on."_

"It went on like that for four more days, until finally someone came for me."

_Ella lay on the concrete floor, lungs heaving for air and failing as they encountered her broken ribs. She'd tried everything: giving them false codes, lying, everything. She'd even told the truth and they didn't believe her. They gave her one hour a day of rest, and she generally spent it on the floor of her cell, gasping. They fed her occasionally, and gave her water, but her lips were dry, cracked and bleeding, and her hair was a nest of greasy tangles. She was sure that she smelled to high heaven, and she could barely swallow her throat was so dry. _

_The sound of shouting and weapons fire reached her from the hallway. Weakly, she lifted her head to look just as the door was flung inward. A pair of booted feet rushed over to her and Ella felt herself being lifted in strong arms. She was having trouble focusing, but eventually she was able to see the face of the person carrying her._

_"You fought like a true warrior, little girl," Akhil said, looking down at Ella fondly. "You would make any Klingon parent proud. You make me proud."_

_Ella didn't know how Akhil had gotten there, or if she was even real, but as she slipped into blissful oblivion, she felt glad that she'd been able to see her once again before the end. _

"It took them almost a month to fix me back up, partly on the ship and the rest on Deep Space 5. And you know the rest."

"Why was Akhil there?" asked Spock.

"Her vessel was passing through and engaged the _Perseus_, hoping to acquire some medical supplies. My name came up while Captain Reynolds was explaining why they were there, and Akhil immediately insisted that they join forces to mount a rescue attempt." Ella sighed. "To be honest, I don't feel as traumatized now as people say I should. I know, it was awful and painful and all, and to top it off it was my father dishing out the pain, but I know I was doing right. That sort of makes it okay."

Spock hugged her tight to his chest. He was boiling with rage at her father and her other captors for hurting her, and at himself for not being able to help her. It was illogical and unhelpful, but he couldn't deny that he was infuriated.

"That was how you were promoted," Spock hazarded.

"Yes. Captain Reynolds shouted at me for ten minutes about how it was reckless and stupid and that I should have let them focus on him, then he told me how brave I was and promoted me. When he first started yelling I thought I would be facing a court martial."

"Did you ever tell him that Damian was your father?"

"Yes, once we were back on the ship," Ella said. "He understood the false name. I mean, he might have spared me if he'd known it was his own flesh and blood he was hurting, but I didn't want to take the chance that it would just egg him on."

"You are very brave, my love," Spock whispered as they lay down, both still in their uniforms, curled together on top of the covers.

"Or very stupid," Ella said, nestling into the crook of his arm and closing her eyes. "Probably just stupid."


	24. Chapter 24: Warrior

A/N: Gah! So so sorry about the lack of updates over the last... OH my god it's been a month? I promised myself I wouldn't do this to people because I sort of hate it when people do it! But there you are. University ate my life, and writer's block launched an attack on my creativity, but finally I got this done. Hopefully it won't be another month before the muse strikes again. Anyway, on with the update!!

* * *

Warrior

"Keptin, a Klingon Bird of Prey just decloaked off zee starboard bow!"

Chekov's voice was tense but steady as he barked the sensor readings to his captain. Jim, who had been arguing with Ella about him coming down to sickbay for his yearly physical ("I'm in there enough as it is, why do I still need to do it?"), but as soon as the words reached his ears he spun in his chair to face the viewscreen, which now held an image of the imposing vessel that had just made itself known. His expression went from one of good-natured frustration to a steely, battle-ready glare in a matter of seconds, and he started barking orders.

"Shields up, ready phaser banks and torpedo launchers and will someone please tell me what the hell the Klingons are doing way out here!"

"Sir, they're hailing!" Uhura barked from her station, one hand to her silver earpiece and the other dancing over her console.

"Onscreen," he said, standing and crossing his arms.

The image of the ship disappeared and was replaced with the face of a scowling Klingon male. He started snarling unintelligibly.

"Where the hell is the Universal Translator, Lieutenant?" Kirk asked.

"It's not picking up on the dialect, sir. Wherever this man's from, the UT doesn't have any information on his area's take on the language."

"Can you understand it?"

"Not really," she admitted. "I can pick up every couple of words, but…"

To everyone's shock, Uhura was interrupted by a flood of guttural sounds from beside the command chair. Every eye on the bridge turned to stare at Ella, who was growling at the man on the screen, who looked torn between amazement and rage. There was a break in the yelling and Ella looked at Jim apologetically.

"I recognize his dialect. His name is Commander Rokhin of the warbird _Somraw_," she said. "I hope you don't mind. Oh, and Jim? Close your mouth. Something might fly in."

Jim obliged. Over the years, he'd forgotten that Ella had been raised by wolves (sorry, _Klingons_), and that she'd learned their language. He didn't know how he'd forgotten: her involvement with Klingons had been the very thing that had gotten her ostracized in school.

Ella unleashed a fresh wave of snarling at the screen, and Jim stared at her, still alarmed. He'd never seen her looking so fierce. The pretty face of his relatively subdued best friend was contorted into a scowl as she hurled the words at the Klingon on the screen. He volleyed them back, and the volume rose. Jim stole a glance back at his first officer, still perched on the edge of his chair at the science station. Both his eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into his hairline, the Vulcan expression of utter shock. Other than that and his tense posture he looked calm, but to Jim it was clear he was unnerved.

There was a pause in the verbal battle, and Ella turned to Jim with a smile.

"I've explained what we're doing here, and that we want no trouble, but that if he wants a battle he shall have one because this ship is captained by the illustrious warrior James T. Kirk. At first he thought that was _my _name, but I explained that you were the captain and didn't speak the language. He deemed you a worthy adversary but had no honorable reason to enter into conflict with you."

"So what now?" Jim asked, glancing at the Klingon leering at him from the viewscreen.

"He wants to host us for a banquet, and some… healthy competition," Ella explained. "The fact that I knew how to speak to him properly went a long way, and this crew's reputation as fair and honorable warriors has preceded us. He knew the name _Enterprise_ when they hailed us. That's why we're not space dust right now." She sighed. "I know it's a bit of a step outside the norm, given how tense things are between Starfleet and the Empire right now, but if we play our cards right, this could be a major step forward."

"Tell him we accept," Jim said. He stared down the man on the screen, trying to look intimidating and non-offensive at the same time. It didn't work so well, and he could feel himself glowering. With effort, he pulled the scowl off his face and nodded at the other captain. He received a slow nod in return as Ella translated their acceptance. The screen went dark, and everyone on the bridge let out a combined breath. Spock stood and went over to Ella, and Jim watched them for a moment, speaking in hushed tones. He cast a glance at Uhura: the younger woman was looking at the first officer contemplatively, surprisingly without a trace of anger or resentment on her lovely face. Jim couldn't blame her. It was hard to see Spock and Ella together and not understand how _right_ they were. Besides, Uhura and Spock had been over for several months, and their relationship was short lived to say the least. Nevertheless, Jim would never forget the sight of the stoic Vulcan making out with the communications officer on the transporter pad before they'd beamed to the _Narada_. Strangest and most unexpected thing he'd ever seen (and was likely to ever see).

Averting his eyes from his friends, he stared at his shoes. It was a bit depressing, to see two of the people he cared about so happy. Not that he wasn't glad for them, but it reminded him of the consequences of his life as a serial bachelor. He'd had a girlfriend for a few months at the Academy, and in all honesty, he was finding that he missed the feeling of having a stable female fixture in his life. He sighed. Maybe it was time for playboy Kirk to cool his jets. After all, being a captain meant growing up. Perhaps it was his time to do so.

"Alright, team," he said, standing and rubbing his hands together. "We're going to a party: meeting in the briefing room in ten to discuss possible ramifications and options. But let's make this quick, I still have to make myself pretty for our Klingon friends."

* * * * *

By the time they were ushered into the banquet hall on the _Somraw_, the away team had been rudimentarily briefed on the expectations that the Klingons had of them and how they were to behave. Ella had also suggested that wearing their Starfleet uniforms might not be the most prudent decision; a more neutral approach to the banquet might be more beneficial for everyone.

So when the away team arrived on the Klingons' transporter pad, they were mostly clad in simple black. Ella wore her bat'leth strapped inoffensively (as much as a sizeable, wicked sharp weapon can be inoffensive) across her back, but the only other technology that the away team bore were their communicators, with the modifications to the UT that would allow them to understand their hosts.

The banquet hall was sumptuous, even by Klingon Standards. Rich tapestries were draped across the walls, and the table that had been set for the dinner was made of heavy-looking, dark wood. There was only one person waiting for them in the hall however. Captain Rokhin stood in front of the table, and was appraising the away team.

"This will not do," he said, and this time the UT had no trouble with the language. It seemed only a few adjustments had been necessary, and once Ella had explained them to Uhura, the communications officer had whizzed through the modifications. "My second in command has informed me that your commander is the man who defeated that _p'tagh_ Romulan in battle. To have such a valiant warrior on my ship brings me honour, be you human or Klingon. But it will not do to have you and your courageous crewmates dressed so… simply. Tonight, you will be garbed as true warriors."

Jim looked at Ella in shock.

"It's a great honor, and a rare one," she said out of the corner of her mouth. "Clearly he's in a good mood. Expect lots of leather."

"Wait," Rokhin said, holding a hand up to stop the two other Klingons who had just entered the room. He strode towards the away team, eyes fixed on a point just above Ella's shoulder. He went around behind her and Ella could feel his gaze on the weapon she bore.

"How did you come to have this?" he hissed at her. "And how did you know our language so well?"

"My mother was taken prisoner by the Empire just before my birth," Ella said. "I was born on Rura Penthe."

He looked impressed for a fraction of a second. "This is the symbol of my wife's house," he said quietly, changing the subject. "Did you steal this while in prison? For my wife was there, many years before we were married."

"I stole nothing. It was a gift from a dear friend." Ella pulled the pendant that Akhil had made her from beneath her black shirt and showed it to the captain. She usually wore it on a long chain beneath her uniform, except on away missions. "She also made me this."

"This is a handsome piece," he said, looking at the pendant. "It suits you. But have you found it?"

"Found what?"

"Your _qul'parmaq_," he said. Ella mentally translated the words: firelove. "The one to complete the circle."

"If you must know, yes," Ella replied, sensing the tension seeping out of the conversation. She glanced at Spock, standing on the other side of Jim, stoic as usual. "I have found him." She paused. "I'd like to meet this wife of yours; she sounds like a very interesting woman."

"Then I shall seat you next to her at the banquet," he declared. "And you can discuss with her why you have her family's sword. But in the meantime, you all must change. My crew will cater to your needs."

The men and women were led away through separate doors, unsure of what to expect.

When they finally returned to the anteroom of the banquet hall, most of them were fidgeting with the unfamiliar style of garment. Ella and Uhura were clad in tight black leggings, clunky boots and thick leather tops that felt more like armor than clothing. Ella was tugging unceremoniously and unabashedly at her top, trying to make her chest appear less prominent. She had little to no success. Uhura was composed, and her fingers only twitched over the clingy material of the tights occasionally.

Jim, on the other hand, was very pleased with himself. He wore tights also, which left very, very little to the imagination, and a leather vest that left his arms and much of his chest bare. He thought he looked rather fetching.

Spock looked unruffled as always, despite his outfit, which was very similar to Jim's. He stood beside his captain, hands clasped behind his back, and calmly surveyed their surroundings. Catching sight of Ella, one eyebrow slowly crept upwards towards his hairline. His eyes darkened and the tips of his ears turned faintly green. Ella waggled her eyebrows at him and grinned lasciviously. He went greener.

"Nice vests," she said, trying not to snicker. Bones, wearing much the same thing as Jim and Spock, scowled at her, crossing his arms. He looked significantly grumpier than usual.

"Don't know why I let y'all talk me into this," he grumbled. "I'm a doctor, not a goddamn diplomat."

"We just brought you along 'cause we knew you'd look so pretty in leather, Bones," Jim said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Besides, what if I have some sort of deadly allergic reaction to what they feed us? You know you'd feel bad if I died because you weren't there."

"That doesn't mean I have to wear goddamn _leather_ and watch the Vulcan and Ella eyeing each other," he growled, jerking a thumb at Ella, who gazed at him like _Who, me?_

"I like eet," said Chekov, who was feeling particularly badass, despite the fact that his outfit was several sizes too big. "Leather vas inwented in Russia, you know…"

"Then we are all in your debt, Mr. Chekov," Jim said.

"Speak for yourself," Bones said under his breath, adjusting his vest.

He probably would have continued, had he not been interrupted by the doors to the banquet hall swinging open to welcome them inside. They took a collective breath and went in.

* * *

Reviews are candy.


	25. Chapter 25: Blood

A/N: Hey, sorry about the wait, exams are coming up and they are attacking my soul. Anyway, this chapter didn't mean to be Jim-centric, it just sort of turned out that way. Jim has been feeling neglected lately, and I thought he deserved a bit of time in the sun. But hopefully he'll be appeased by this and quiet down for a bit so we can get back to Ella and Spocky.

And by the way, that whole spiel with bloodwine mixing badly with the transporter is total bullshit from my own imagination, I just wanted to have them stumble through the airlock. And my only knowledge of string theory is what wikipedia and "String Theory for Dummies" have told me. If there are any physicists in the crowd who I have offended with my butchering of the theory I apologize in advance.

On with the show!

* * *

Blood

"I'd furgotten 'bout blood wine," Ella slurred before passing out into Spock's waiting arms. He'd been anticipating this for some time and was prepared.

Four hours after having entered the banquet hall, not knowing what awaited them, the away team stumbled back onto the _Enterprise_. Uhura was supported by a giggling Chekov, who'd learned the Klingon word for "toast" and found it hysterically funny. He'd learned it over an hour before. The communications officer was, for her part, less embarrassing, but she was pondering aloud to herself in what Jim recognized as Denobulan. As captain, he'd declined the blood wine after his first goblet, and being about as far from a lightweight as a person could possibly be, he was only vaguely buzzed. His crewmates suffered a different fate.

"JIM?" Bones all but yelled as he stumbled through the airlock after his friend, holding the doorframe for support. "I am… SO SORRY!"

"For what, Bones?" Jim asked him calmly, helping him to scale the step into the main body of the ship.

"I was gonna _marry_ her, I promise!" Bones whispered in his ear. Jim wiped at the slobber that went with it. And this man said he could hold his liquor… That red shit must have been pretty potent to reduce Jim's bordering-on-alcoholic CMO to this blabbering loudmouth. "Then she up and _lef'_."

"Now is not the time or place for this conversation, Bones," Jim said. "Let's just get you to your quarters."

"I _got_ it," Bones snapped, pulling away and starting down the hallway.

"Uh, Bones? You live the other way." Without a word, Bones stomped past Jim with alarming stability and out of sight around the corner. Jim just shook his head. Hopeless, all of them.

"Captain, may I transport Commander Jones to her cabin?" Jim heard from behind him. He turned around and found himself facing Spock, who was supporting a very stoic-faced Ella. "She seems to have overindulged in… shall we say 'diplomatic non-refusal of alcoholic substances'."

"Yeah, you're dismissed, Spock," Jim said, glancing worriedly at the young curly-haired ensign beside them, who had dissolved from giggling into snorting, and was starting to double over. Now_ there_ was a lightweight. The Klingons themselves had cut him off after only one cup. At the beginning of the evening. "Take care of her: Ella drunk is not a nice thing. Trust me, I know."

"I was under impression that she did not make a habit of imbibing alcohol," Spock said, lifting her into his arms for ease's sake. She stared at his shoulder with a very serious expression.

"Once," Jim said. "Whiskey. Wasn't pretty."

"I cannot imagine a situation where she would be any less than pretty, however, your point is taken," Spock said.

"Get out of here, you sap," Jim said, shoving at his arm playfully. It didn't move, and Spock just gave him a look that blatantly told him he was being illogical and started off down the hall with Ella, who started to spout information about string theory.

"…but if supersymmetry _did_ exist between the bosons and fermions, then the fact that two bosons can occupy the same space compared to the fact that two fermions _cannot_ indicates that the bosons are force carriers, whereas fermions are associated with matter…"

Jim was glad when she was carried out of earshot. Particle physics made his head hurt. One of the many reasons he'd chosen to apply his brilliance to command instead of science. He dealt with the rest of the away team (it would have been so much easier if blood wine didn't react adversely with the transporter!), seeing that they all headed for their rooms. When everyone was safely tucked in, so to speak, Jim headed for his quarters.

He didn't even bother to turn on the lights when he got there, knowing the positions of all the furniture like the back of his hand. He stripped off the leather vest and tights and collapsed onto the bed, heaving a great sigh and going over the evening's events in his mind.

It had started a bit ominously. The away team had entered the banquet hall to find the table filled with glaring Klingons, not all of whom seemed as interested in a diplomatic meeting as their captain. However, as they approached the table, Ella and Uhura had snarled out some sort of greeting and given a weird, jerky salute. The Klingons all seemed pleased with this, and the scowls were replaced by feral smiles. Their favor had been won.

Then the captain entered with a striking Klingon woman who Jim assumed to be his wife on his arm, and everything went uphill from there. Apparently Ella and the woman knew each other well, and their reunion was loud and joyful. The rest of the crew was baffled for a few moments, before they explained how they knew each other.

"This is Akhil, Jim," Ella said, gesturing to the grinning woman.

Realization dawned, and Jim felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. This was their way in. He felt like they had nothing to worry about anymore: the captain's wife was like family to Ella, and she didn't look like the kind of woman who would let anyone mess with her family.

After the delicious but slightly questionable dinner of what Ella called _gagh_ (Jim's food wriggled), the strongest warriors of the Klingon crew gave a demonstration of moQ'bara, their formal martial art. Jim knew it was posturing, showing the puny humans how talented and valiant their warriors were. They invited Ella to join, but she politely declined, stating that their skill was too far beyond her own. They admired her bat'leth, however, at great length, explaining its history with help from Akhil. Ella listened raptly, drinking in their stories of battle, and Jim found himself watching her closely. She spoke louder than usual when she talked with them, and bared her teeth more when she smiled. Clearly it didn't take much for her to re-immerse herself in the world she'd lived in for most of her formative years.

The bloodwine started to kick in as the empty plates were taken away. The Klingons got louder while the team tried to keep up, eventually digressing into simply yelling at each other in an attempt to be heard. Ella was singing with Akhil and Captain Rokhin, and Chekov was getting propositioned by a large Klingon woman. McCoy saw this and intervened, despite his apparent inability to stay totally stable. Spock was glaring at his still full goblet of bloodwine suspiciously. He'd declined the food on the grounds that it "conflicted with his cultural beliefs", and Jim could tell he was hungry. Ella soon asked for some bread for him, though, and all was well.

Eventually the Klingons suggested that the two captains engage in some sort of competition, if only just for amusement. Jim was skeptical, but agreed, suggesting an arm wrestle and regretting it immediately after. Rokhin seemed to think it was a good idea, however, and before long Jim found himself across the table from the muscular alien. The two crews were cheering on their respective commanders as they clasped hands. Jim braced himself, and when the word "go" was spoken, he pushed against his opponent with all his might. The strength behind that arm was ferocious, and Jim could feel his muscles burning as he tried his best not to fold beneath that power. He'd always been strong; Frank never wanted to pop for farm implements, and Jim had ended up doing everything on their property the hard way. But against this giant of a man, Jim felt like his chance of winning was slim to none.

However, Rokhin had imbibed much more alcohol than Jim had by that point, and this worked to Jim's advantage. Rokhin's unsteadiness allowed Jim to push his arm past the point where he would be able to recover and slam it onto the table.

There was silence. For a long, awkward moment, Jim wondered if winning had been a giant faux-pas. Then Rokhin gave a triumphant sort of yell and hoisted Jim's arm up into the air in victory. Everyone cheered. Seemed Rokhin is a good loser.

The evening wrapped up soon after, and the Klingons docked with the _Enterprise_, stating that it would be inadvisable to mix bloodwine with the transporter. Jim felt good about the whole event, hoping that this might be a step towards establishing a sort of bridge between their cultures. It was worth the headaches he knew his bridge crew would be experiencing in the morning (according to Ella's warning, anti-hangover hypos didn't affect bloodwine hangovers).

As his mind wound down, Jim's thoughts wandered to the couples beginning to crop up amongst his crew. Ella and Spock, Chekov and that cute young thing from astrometrics… even Uhura was getting into the game: Jim had seen her getting cozy with Scotty at the crew's last movie night. As captain, his choice was very limited. The only people on the ship he could viably be with were Spock and McCoy, and neither of those prospects were very appealing to Jim. That limited him to shore leave and the occasional dignitary that the _Enterprise_ happened to be hosting. Even those relations usually ended badly. Jim realized, in his state of half-sleep, that he was lonely. That would have to be remedied.

In the morning.

Meanwhile, the rest of the away team members were finding their way into bed. McCoy had gone back to his room and considered drinking some more, but declined in favor of listening to some Johnny Cash and sulking. Whenever he got particularly tanked, McCoy's regrets often pushed themselves to the forefront of his soused mind. He missed his daughter the most sharply at those times (he _never_ missed her mother, however, no matter how drunk he was), and lately he found himself delving deeper into the well of things he wished he'd done differently. Especially with Ella.

He had been kicking himself for eight years for not going after her. Although he understood now that it was for the best and she'd never been meant for him anyway, a small selfish part of him rebelled against that. He'd spent long, inebriated hours going through all the possible situations that could have arisen had Ella stayed with him. Most of them were just wishful thinking, but one day while imagining a life where Ella had stayed with him, not gone to the Academy and they'd lived happily ever after, his scattered mind had stumbled across a startling potential chain of events. Had Ella stayed, McCoy would never have married Jocelyn, his ex-wife, and would have had no reason to flee to Starfleet. If McCoy had never gone to the Academy, he would never have met and become friends with Jim. Consequently, Jim wouldn't have been brought aboard the _Enterprise_ by McCoy. Without Jim's influence, Earth would most likely no longer exist. This unsettling prospect was usually enough to dispel McCoy's selfish musings. But some days (particularly when bloodwine was involved, apparently), even the thought of the end of the world wasn't enough to dismiss McCoy's regrets and what-ifs.

He passed out that night with thoughts of polka-dot dresses and red hair in his mind.

Elsewhere on the ship, Ella was drunkenly trying to seduce Spock, who was having none of it. He stated repeatedly that while he loved her very much, he was not going to be with her that evening. She pouted and redoubled her efforts. It wasn't until he threatened to take her back to her own quarters and leave her to the tender mercies of her very non-sympathetic roommate. Charlie was practically a professional drinker and had had too many experiences with worshipping the porcelain god to be entirely sympathetic. Ella relented after that and consented to be put to bed. Neither of them knew that both their captain and chief medical officer had been thinking about them that night.

Uhura went straight to her quarters and fell asleep. She dreamt in Denobulan.

Chekov kept himself up all night, giggling.

None of them knew how drastically the next few weeks would upend their lives.

* * *

Woo.


End file.
